Norman Yakeleya

I want to state again the wishes of the elders from Colville Lake on the caribou. I heard the Minister talk about the collars on the caribou. It disturbs them quite considerably. How do we monitor our wildlife?

Mr. Speaker, I understand the teacher from Colville Lake really didn’t want to come back to town. He wanted to stay out there and be a trapper. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister undertake the issue to meet with this colleague, Minister of Education, to see if this Take a Kid Trapping or Take a Kid Harvesting Program could somehow be included and part of the education in terms of solidifying this program like a trades program that some of the young people do want to become trappers? That is an honourable career choice of theirs to do something for themselves. Would the Minister sit down with the...

Thank you. I certainly know that the people probably appreciate this in our budget here. Have there also been indications where fire damage into harvesters area, a trapline area or harvesters where moose, caribou, berry picking, in plants that there are other ways to compensate people if their area has been burnt out in terms of trappers in that area? Is that something that ENR works closely with ITI in handling situations that may be quite complex?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of ITI, with this program Take a Kid Trapping, I said in my Member’s statement the value of cultural and Aboriginal programs into the schools. I want to ask the Minister of ITI if in the future the success of this program will also include the success in terms of increasing the funding so that this program can be more permanent into the educational programs in schools.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister is certainly correct. Also in the report it states warrant further investigations to the communities that are listed out. Certainly they also have communities listed for all-weather road, communities that would benefit from a district heating system. These are the communities that are favourable for economic potential for biomass initiatives. My point, Mr. Chairman, is that the communities that are on the winter road resupply that I listed off have not gotten lost in the system. Mr. Minister has indicated that there are already plans in place. Again, I am going to...

That is where the hiccup is in terms of having these woodstoves put into some of the houses for some of the communities. They have been using woodstoves for many, many years and I don’t think some of the old-timers had to have, for insurance purposes, anybody come in there and look and say we can’t put it in there. They just bought it and they put it in, so that is where there are some disagreements. I hope they can resolve that issue, and maybe not, I am not too sure how they could do it.

It seems to be something that seems to be putting a damper on a good thing by this department to help out...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Department of Transportation has done a lot of work in the Territories. I want to speak on the initiatives that were done in my region and I want to say that the airport infrastructure that happened in my region were very beneficial to my constituents, to the airline companies. We were happy that the department and the Fort Good Hope community came to a satisfactory solution that helped them extend the runway a little longer. People in Fort Good Hope were very pleased that this has taken place, because of their joint ventures with NorthWright in terms of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say a few words here. I know the government here has been working pretty close with my communities and I was just thinking about Colville Lake. It has been in the news and I have talked to the press about this with the water and sewer facilities in the school and the health centre. What I heard back was that it is a Municipal and Community Affairs issue and a community of Colville Lake issue, not they are working in regards to that infrastructure. I want to ensure members from Colville Lake that this issue here is being worked on. There are certainly other...

I look forward to the information. More importantly, I think the people who were asked to move out to make way for these renovations would be very much interested in knowing when they can move back into their units. So I hope that whatever needs to happen happens, to get them back into their units.

I want to ask the Minister if he would look into that situation and report back as to what happened, why there was such a delay to move people back into those units. It’s put a lot of stress on a lot of people in the community of Deline. People are overcrowded, they’re asked to move into other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope the Minister can work with him more in terms of the priority here in the North of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I want to ask the Minister, I know the Premier and Cabinet have made some other recommendations to the Norman Wells initiative on funding the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Can the Minister inform the House if other options have been exhausted? We’re actually begging the federal Minister to put some dollars so that we can have that highway, so that we can reduce the cost of living and strengthen the sovereignty of the Northwest Territories. Does the Minister...