Norman Yakeleya

In my discussions with the elders -- and I’ve had a few discussions with them, Mr. Speaker -- the elders say the animals on this land are there for us to survive as human beings. I believe if the Minister wants to quote more traditional knowledge, I think it needs to go to the people, to the real hunters, the real people who use caribou, people like Colville Lake, people in Deline who say this is not right. Why are our calves being born two weeks late? Something is wrong. Again, people who know this, it’s not the government. So I’ll ask the Minister again, in terms of the ban here, the people...

Mr. Speaker, I’ve been listening, with interest, to the responses from the Minister of ENR. I want to ask the Minister of ENR in regard to the Bathurst Inlet caribou population, which was 120,000 in 2006. The Minister indicated that in 2009 the population dropped to 30,000, so 90,000 caribou disappeared somewhere. I want to ask the Minister regarding his consultation on the ban in this specific area. Is the Minister willing to look at possibly the ban in terms of giving the aboriginal hunters a percentage of caribou in that area, maybe a half percent or 1 percent in terms of providing that to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, before lunch I had caribou stew.

Mr. Chairman, my comments would be brief in terms of the budget. I do want to thank the staff members and the Ministers for putting together this budget. I know that the budget process is quite contentious and that the needs are always greater than what we could afford and that priorities have to be considered and sometimes when I have issues that want to be brought forward to see if they can get any attention, sometimes they go in with the mix of other things and sometimes they don’t come out on top or it has to be considered at another time.

Mr. Chairman, the budget here shows an increase of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If that’s the case, the aboriginal people would have agreed. Why is it that when I call my leadership in the Sahtu, they say this is not right, this is wrong. The Wekeezhii board has to make a decision and it has not yet made a decision. The government, in its wisdom, jumped the gun. Mr. Speaker, was there an agreement to say, yes, we’ll come back? Is that part of the consultation? Sometimes I hear consultation in terms of this is what you shall do and that is it. Was there an agreement in terms of putting a ban here and waiting for people? You should really come to the...

Mr. Speaker, the lifting of a small percentage of the caribou, I believe that because the issue here is it’s so large and so huge to the people in the Mackenzie Valley here, it would divert a political volcano, I guess, in terms of the issue of aboriginal rights, conservation, who’s right, who’s going to win. It’s going to impact long-term relationships with the aboriginal people. I want to again ask the Minister if he would consider a small percentage of the total amount of herd, as we’ve done in the Sahtu, at least look at this issue in terms of the bigger picture, in terms of relationship...

Before I ate my caribou stew, my wife mentioned to me, she said, you know, this issue about the caribou, the specific area that there is a ban on hunting, this is what we are fighting about. You know, to have caribou in our life. This specific issue here is about this whole thing about our way of life, our food, and when I talked to several people over the weekend about caribou and asked how does it seem like on the radio in terms of this whole issue from this government, from this Legislative Assembly, most of the replies were that it’s not very good. It seems like the government is telling...

Mr. Speaker, several weeks ago there was a leadership meeting in Fort Simpson convened by the Dene Nation where all the chiefs had some discussions on this issue. From discussion I heard on the radio, it seems like we are still at an impasse in terms of this issue here with the chief and this government in terms of the ban on caribou and there must be some form of miscommunication somewhere along the line. Would the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs see if there is a possibility of seeing if we could work with the leadership down the Mackenzie Valley in terms of how do we deal with this issue...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in regard to the caribou issue that is happening right now. I want to ask the Minister in his role as the Affairs Minister, has he had any type of discussion with the Minister of Indian Affairs on the situation that is happening in the Northwest Territories?

Would the process in terms of this Mackenzie Valley Highway, I know there are discussions now between Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik in terms of their ongoing process to see an all-season road made there. Would this process come down into the Mackenzie Valley in terms of connecting from the Dempster down to the community of Wrigley, or Wrigley up the highway in terms of project description funding and environmental assessment? I know the Minister has done an economic analysis of the Mackenzie Valley Highway in terms of the federal government coming forward and stepping up to the plate to support this...