Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister mentioned about the small hydro initiatives and I want to ask the Minister, what do the community of Deline specifically and the people from the Sahtu and the Northwest Territories look forward to in this budget to see if the Deline or Great Bear hydro project would actually see some design, some steps towards construction of a possible mini-hydro in that area. They’ve been at it for about nearly 16 or 17 years. I guess when is this talking going to start and when are we going to see some action putting that hydro in the Bear River?

Certainly, you have my support, Mr. Minister and staff, to see how this tourism is supported and funded by our government to promote. I understand the Olympics certainly gave a boost to the Northwest Territories with our venue there. Hopefully, it would spring from there to do other initiatives that are unique, especially to the culture of the people of the Northwest Territories. I believe that this tourism, this specific Aboriginal Tourism Initiative Strategy, is heading in that direction.

Certainly, I do know that our regions are sometimes supported by all-weather roads and some are not by...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask this department on the oil and gas information that we’ve been receiving the last couple of days on the resources and how the oil companies are looking at ways to extract the oil out of the Tulita district and the Sahtu through Norman Wells.

They talked about the hydraulic fracking. I know this is old and new information. It’s been used in Canada for awhile. It’s fairly new to us here. They did a little bit up in the Fort Liard area in the gas fields there, but with us in the Sahtu, they are talking about this as a potential method that they want to extract...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on May 31, 2012, it shall be adjourned until Monday June 4, 2012;

AND FURTHER, that any time prior to June 4, 2012, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at a time stated in such notice and shall transact its business as it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We went to Colville Lake, Mr. Abernethy and I and Mr. Beaulieu, and we witnessed and saw the three empty units in Colville Lake. I know the Minister is working very hard to get clients in there. We certainly support that. It’s been a couple of years since we have had these empty units sitting there. We will work with the Minister to get these units occupied. There are a number of initiatives that we could look at to get the units occupied. I think it’s a crying shame that in Colville Lake there are units that have been sitting empty for so long. I’d like to ask the...

I look forward to the reply from the Minister. I want to ask him, on the vacant units they have in the Sahtu, for example, I had a phone call from Colville Lake. There are a couple of vacant units up there. I also had a call from Chief Frank Andrew and there are a couple of vacant units in Tulita. I know there are a couple in Deline. I want to ask the Minister if his corporation has a plan on how to get people into those empty units. There are a lot of issues there, but how and what is the Minister doing to get people into those units?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people in Colville Lake want to know – at some point they were told that they were going to get a new school – why was that bumped from the capital planning project and they brought in the portable building. Why was that bumped in Colville Lake and they missed out on having a new school?

In the Colville Lake School it’s very difficult for the teachers to give the best attention to the students. Where in the capital planning process that the Minister can see that the Colville Lake students can have a chance to say yes, we could possibly get some planning studies done to put us on the capital planning projects to have a new school. Where?

It took eight years to get proper washroom facilities in our school. Could this be a measurement on how long a new school may be coming to Colville Lake? I want this government to examine clearly the benefits of building this school against the other projects when the time comes to determine which infrastructure projects we can take on in this government.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday we brought in a motion on early childhood development to show our concern that we want this government, our government, to focus on building a strong foundation for our future, whether it’s training, funding or structures.

We are, indeed, challenged with a fiscal responsibility of keeping afloat in the waters of economic uncertainty. However, we have set our goals in the 17th and we must, by all means, do our best to get there. We are approaching the critical mass of which infrastructure projects will see the light of day within this government. So much, yet so...