Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This being anti-bullying day, I thought I’d try to twist my questions into questions to the Minister of Transportation in the Sahtu. Our roads are rough, rough and rough. We have 1,444 kilometres of winter roads. That’s leading from Wrigley to Fort Good Hope, Colville Lake and to Deline.

I want to ask the Minister, given his recent awareness of our winter roads, especially from Norman Wells to Fort Good Hope, and the annual hand game tournament this weekend in Fort Good Hope, what is the Minister doing to fix the potholes, to fix washboard alley? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize. I’ll table the document and I’ll leave my questions for some other venue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one other question. An interesting point that the renewal of the licence is in the federal government’s hands and the federal government is part owner of Imperial Oil oilfield. That leads to other questions. Anyhow, I’m not going to belabour on that point here.

My other question I have for the Minister has probably to do also with the federal government, is the Great Bear Lake area where I think it was 700,000 tonnes of material that was dumped into the lake. I know that they are going through a process of that remediation cleanup and it has to do with the...

I appreciate that. Is this person able to help the communities, and I’m looking mostly at Fort Good Hope and maybe even Tulita, as to translating the language of a licence like Imperial Oil with all the chemicals and scientific jargon and technical wording into plain English so our people can understand what Imperial Oil is reporting? They do give a report but it’s a very highly technical, engineering, scientific report so we need a person that then can translate, saying this is what they’re saying, these are the chemicals that Imperial Oil is using, this is what’s been processed through the...

I’m so happy, Madam Chair, because I know the people in Fort Good Hope will be happy because, again, the application by Imperial Oil is to take out billions of litres of water and use it for their operations and half of those billions are going back into the Mackenzie River and flowing down towards Fort Good Hope and Tsiigehtchic and down to the Arctic Ocean. So this person is going to be a key person to work with the community of Fort Good Hope.

My understanding again, and I appreciate the Minister’s response, is this person then going to be available to help the residents of Fort Good Hope...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe people who are in the Sahtu or people who are planning to go up to the Sahtu appreciate what the Minister is saying in this House this afternoon.

I want to also thank the Minister and to follow up on his commitment on a preconstruction meeting for next year.

Is the Minister also going to seek the opinion of one of the users as Bassett Petroleum operators and see if they can be a part of that preconstruction discussion as to the conditions of our winter roads? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to return to item 5 on the orders of the day.

---Unanimous consent granted

I have looked at some of the activities going on in the small communities, extracurricular activities that could support students in their education, also their health and wellness. Some of the small communities are doing very well at the territorial level in sports such as basketball, volleyball and soccer.

Is this part of their school programming that can be supported with their educational goals in the small communities?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment if he’s talked with his department… There was a young student I talked with a few weeks ago. I wanted to ask the student what the best thing about going to school is. Do you know what the student said to me, Mr. Speaker? He said, “Leaving.” I just went, “What?”

What is the Minister’s department doing to keep the students in the school rather than to leave right away?

When the government did a test in the schools, we found out, shockingly, that in our schools in our small communities, 50 percent are operating below their grade level. That’s shocking.

So, I want to ask the Minister again, with him probably not having the privilege of reading the Globe and Mail I received, to look at a pilot project in our communities that would increase these numbers here. They’re doing it at the Hillside School on the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation and Walpole Island Elementary School.

Is the Minister willing to look at this, investigate it and say yes, this could be...