Norman Yakeleya

The health care services to Colville Lake by the Sahtu Health Board, mainly the community of Fort Good Hope, has provided an increase of health care into Colville Lake. I spoke to the health representatives and they are happy they are seeing more regular visits by the nurse. Also they made mention that they would like to see more training for an additional position, because it gets quite heavy in terms of their responsibility as a health care professional. Would the Minister look at program funding in terms of having an additional person in Colville Lake to help out and offset health care...

Thank you. The question I have, Mr. Speaker, is to the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to the issue of nurses in small communities. Can the Minister tell the House how many communities do not have a full-time nurse?

I’m getting hungry now here. I want to ask the Minister in terms of his development, his process in terms of developing local markets for, say for example, fish, in terms of once the budget now is going to be, hopefully, finalized within the next six days here, in terms of going forward, is the Minister then prepared to put a discussion paper before the appropriate community in terms of getting their input, in terms of having this initiative see the light of day in terms of when we can get something on the go here.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are to the Minister of ITI. Just to listen to him, he’s a big fan of strategies and visions. I want to ask the Minister here in terms of getting -- I’m going to back to it -- wildlife food into our government facilities or into stores. Right now we have a fish market here. We have good fish in the Great Slave Lake and Bear Lake. How can the Minister, through his department, assist the fishery industry to put fish into our government institutions such as the hospital where they can have traditional foods in that facility?

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my statement, we have a high population of youth, young people under 25. It’s actually 45 percent of our population in the Sahtu that needs some attention. I want to ask the Minister in terms of helping the students in our regions, in our communities, to help them get into Aurora College programs in our communities under the Apprenticeship Training Program and working with them in terms of putting this Labour Market Agreement together so they could see people be productive members of society and to their communities.

There are many issues in the Sahtu regarding education. I just recently was notified that two students that did attend a Fort Smith course at Aurora College and one wanted to attend the NAIT program. Both dropped out and went back to the Sahtu and are now working. Mr. Speaker, these are two young men that weren’t able to pursue the post-secondary education. That’s a crying shame, Mr. Speaker, in terms of supporting our students. With regards to all these issues that can be raised in the Sahtu, the Minister will be getting an educational symposium proposal from the Sahtu to have education...

I will look at it and see if it eases my reference here. Okay. I have to read this before I have other questions I can speak later on to. That will be it for me.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister, in his ministerial statement, talked about education and I also heard some Members talk about the Mentorship Program here. I want to ask the Minister, I’ve been working quite diligently with him over a couple of years to look at a mentorship program in the Sahtu in terms of involving our real teachers in our culture, the elders. How do you get the real teachers into an education system to work with us and the parents? When will the Minister put forth a directive saying elders now have to be involved in our education system?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of questions. Have the Ministers had an analysis of reducing the costs in my region by having a bridge here? In light of what we’re going to increase the budget for the bridge, I think the Minister of Transportation said it has a negative effect on the cost of living to reduce the cost of living. I know at one time it made sense, but now we’re adding additional dollars to it. Is this still the case to reduce the cost in the Sahtu and in Behchoko or Fort Providence or even Yellowknife?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m informed that the percentage of NWT aboriginal high school graduates has increased significantly since 2000. In 2008 approximately 50 percent of graduates were aboriginal; in 2000 only 30 percent of the graduates were aboriginal. In the same period the total number of graduates in smaller communities nearly doubled. Fifty-five percent of those 18 years and older in the NWT are now graduated from high school.

That all sounds like good news to me, but I’m still discouraged. Many of the Sahtu high school graduates don’t have a real high school graduation. They don’t...