Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Chair, I want to add my few comments to the department. I do want to say the maintainer’s position was advertised and filled by a local person in Tulita. I’m very pleased with this program and the other communities that do have it. It’s something that we should continue to look at to expand in other communities. It’s a valuable program. I do want to thank the department for going ahead with this and filling these positions as quickly as possible.

As my colleague Mr. Beaulieu indicated, that the Apprenticeship Program is something that’s very valuable in our small communities and that there...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is certainly showing me a little love here in terms of putting this Sahtu trades centre. Would the Minister bring forward this discussion to the next Aurora College Board for serious discussion to look at a trades centre in the Sahtu in order to move it to the next step of putting it in the books?

Thank you. The Minister indicated that they are working on gathering information; and being quite familiar with the process of moving it through the stages to a vote for capital needs, that’s quite a distance away. So I want to ask the Minister when you are gathering information within the time frame of this government, would this continue to the next government in terms of having a clear picture on whether the Sahtu will receive some good news to say that a Sahtu trades centre is coming down the tube and putting it in the books for some discussion in the House?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too want to add my voice to the Members and to talk about education. A couple of days ago, when I brought my young son to Mildred Hall School, my son was talking to me and saying that at the school they were learning the Dene laws. I said, oh, what kind of laws are you learning? He said, well, we’re learning about the Dene laws. I said, well, what laws do you know right now? He said, Dad, Dene law number three. I said, well, what’s number three? He said, Dene Law number three is love one another as much as possible. And I was going, oh, my God. Mildred Hall, I want to...

The park is a long way from actually coming under the territorial jurisdiction. I think there’s a 10-step process before we can actually see something. I think we’re on step three on having jurisdiction over the park. I appreciate having the signs up there; however, some people can’t read signs and so they just drive right past the signs and they continue to tear up the area with their ATVs. It’s a real shame that something like this continues and I’m asking if this department can look at some interim protection to restrict the use of the ATVs. The road is good. If they can stay sensibly on...

Well, Mr. Chair, it does seem that we’re moving forward to hopefully actual construction on the Bear River to have a hydro plant on the Bear River for the community of Deline.

On the other issue of the Taltson Hydro, I know that the Taltson has done a lot of work. There are things that still need to be discussed. I still think that it’s a viable project and that we could continue to have that project maybe not moving right now, probably just on life support for a year or two before we can see if there’s some movement on the mines or there are other initiatives out there that certainly could...

I’ll have to do a little bit more research and digging around in this to how they’ve been drawn down and what type of capacity building initiatives the Sahtu has been using towards helping them with this project. That’s it, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. He has made my day there, Mr. Chairman.

I want to ask another question. When some of the employees that do have to take off some special leave, I think the government has been pretty good with them on some leaves, like family sickness or there is a death in the family and they have some time off and there are some special circumstances that require more than their time off because of whatever they have to deal with in a family situation. So I think that is on a case-by-case basis, so I am not too sure if there is a general wide policy where cultural leave or custom...

Mr. Chair, the Mackenzie Valley development contributions, I want just a little more information on the Aboriginal capacity building initiatives. I understand from the previous page there is about $360,000. That’s what I wanted to ask this Minister, if he had some details he could pass out to the Members here to see the plans. We have six months left in this government to work closely with our communities that are going to be at ground zero at the pipeline, when the pipeline comes down. I’d like to see what programs are going to be supportive in capacity building. Thank you.

Thank you. I’ll keep my comments very brief too. The positions within the GNWT are growing each year. It seems like we’re adding new positions to our workforce. I’m not too sure what the plan is. Is there a time when I’m going to say we need to cut back on positions or hold it or to put a freeze on it? Also to continue to support the Aboriginal people into the government’s senior management into those type of positions.

I look forward to some of the initiatives that the Minister has embarked on. I think there are some real good ones. Laying out a plan, there are the baby boomers that are going...