Norman Yakeleya

I’ll have to hope that between now and the end of August we could do a quick look at those, the core needs survey, to see if it’s there, to see the numbers come down. The Minister is confident, so I hope that the Minister does make sure the numbers come down in my region, because we certainly want to see that.

I want to ask the Minister about creating programs for the core needs. One of them that other Members talked about was the seniors program. Some of the programs that used to be in the communities for the seniors, and I like what the Minister said that there’s possibly some discussion...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask the Minister with regard to the federal funding for social housing that’s declining each year. Can the Minister inform me as to how much money each year the federal government is declining its funding to the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In his strategy, is the Minister considering looking at a communication strategy also? Mr. Speaker, there is an elder in Fort Good Hope that somehow we missed this elder here in terms of communicating between the elder and the Housing Corporation. This elder had his house frozen up for over a month here and nothing happened in terms of Housing looking after him. He was in the bush. The technical advisor was on holidays. Just nothing happened to help this elder here. Now it is finally being looked at and still not a done deal. Is the Minister looking at the communication...

Mr. Speaker, sometimes these seniors and these elders that do have land in the community and sometimes when they make an application they find out that they owe money on this land here and sometimes that prevents them from being eligible for an application to fix up their houses there. I want to ask the Minister: is his department looking at how do we look at issues around arrears or outstanding bills that elders have without them knowing and, of course, they need their houses fixed and it stops them from being repaired?

I guess we need to have more discussion as to what the Minister is saying. Certainly it has been noted that is someone said that certainly if they can get up and walk to the income support office they certainly can walk to work. We have certainly changed our lifestyles in our communities. There are some young people who are really trying hard to make a go of it in life, there are other challenges that they have to put up with. Income assistance is one of them. There are also other people out there that know how to use the system and they think now that welfare is a right for them. We have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to look at true partnerships, you know, the Sahtu would have already signed this agreement. We are not there yet. We need to really look at this, look for what it is. Chapter 22 will be impacted in our land claim, those issues that were negotiated in 1993-94.

Mr. Speaker, that’s what I’m asking this government here when you look at this deal, in terms of going forward, we want to ask, again, the Premier here in terms of how do we look at establishing true partnership. It’s not there yet. How do we do that? In chapter 6 it points to where in the protocol agreement...

The issue with the elders, it looks like it’s going to be another year longer. We’ve been talking for a couple of years on this. It seems so simple, yet we make it so complicated to put elders into our schools. We talk about our culture; we talk about tradition, supporting seniors or elders. Somehow when it’s in our government system it makes it very difficult, because there are so many rules and regulations that prevent an elder from coming into our school to teach, to get them in the system. Certainly this system shows me that it doesn’t really support our elders. We say it’s nice, we say it...

I was of the view that glasses are always half full. Certainly our glass would be full if we did sign on to this agreement here.

I want to ask the Premier in terms of us in the Sahtu getting ready. We need to look at some very serious concerns with this draft AIP and how it’s going to affect our land claim and our governments in terms of going forward. The leadership has asked the Premier, and I want to ask the Premier and his Cabinet colleagues, about continuing to move on this file here with the Sahtu to look at another opportunity to have more discussions in the Sahtu with the whole...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to ask the Minister if he’s gotten anywhere with the education authorities’ O and M contribution funding to have elders in our schools. I know that’s been a longstanding issue for me. I’m hoping he will give me a good response.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the people of the Sahtu for standing up and telling the government when we’re ready to sign the devolution AIP we will decide as a people to move on this agreement. More importantly, we will decide how we want to work and live with each other in the future.

Mr. Speaker, the Sahtu people from Deline, Tulita and Norman Wells met a few days ago in Deline to talk about the devolution table. Actually, Mr. Speaker, a leader and elder from one of our communities made a statement saying that will this be our Custer’s last stand with the governments. Only time...