Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have the pleasure of recognizing the leadership of Deline in the gallery this afternoon. Yesterday we had some beautiful music from the Deline drummers at the celebration here. Of course, Deline is the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada and Deline is the place where you want to catch the largest, biggest trout in the whole wide world. I want to recognize the leadership, the negotiating team, the elders from Deline who are here on this historic day for themselves. They also brought along a friend, I think, one of the leaders from Colville Lake, Mr. Joseph Kochon...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation. The Minister of Transportation and I had a visit in Deline last year and we talked about the safety of the lake and we did talk about the concept of the road going around a section of the lake to hook up to the winter road on the other side of the Bear River.

Is that concept still alive within this department as to the wishes of the people of Deline?

There are provisions, there are training resources in the community of Deline should an elder want to go back to the community for their final resting area. Are there provisions and resources in that community that people are trained to look after their loved ones?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week the Minister of Health and Social Services talked about the plans for palliative care beds in Deline. Is the planning study expected to be completed by the end of this Assembly? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about the importance of bringing our people back into our communities for their last days on this earth. I recall a time when I had a discussion with people in Colville Lake when they had an elderly person come to Yellowknife. In Colville Lake the people were kind of missing him. So I sat with the leadership and they were asking this older man to come back to the community. They were saying it was like they took a book of knowledge, an encyclopedia out of our community. They said this old man had this special knowledge with the animals and it’s like we...

With the elements being there and the work that the Ministers are doing, and that’s quite an ambitious project to work on, I want to ask the Minister, what’s the backup plan not meeting the goal here of 800 persons per year and raising the population in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, are there any updates to the requests for the Deline palliative care bed study that they have been asking for, for some time.

Mr. Chair, in the organization chart I did a little creative drawing and I put in a little box that says superintendent for the Sahtu. It’s really simple, Mr. Chair. Again, just to ask the department to keep that in mind, to consider being creative with that type of thinking.

I do want to say, in all seriousness, my appreciation for the winter roads we have open and the contractors this winter. The contractors have done an excellent job, despite the amount of money that they need. I think all the contractors on our winter roads in the North do a really good job. We have probably the best heavy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to ask the government – I’m not too sure if it’s the Minister of Finance – the question is on our strategy working to increase the population and bring 2,000 people in by 2019. That’s a couple years away. Is it working?

Mr. Chair, that’s very strange. We were going in one direction and the Minister is talking about going in the other direction, training nurses for palliative care. I thought we were moving along there. Was this supported by the community of Deline to say, okay, we’re going to go through some training, and training the nurses to provide palliative care to the community nurses? Something has gone a little wacko here. Can I get the department to respond to this?