Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have listened to the exchange between the MLA for Mackenzie Delta and the Minister of ITI. I wanted to ask the Minister of Transportation in terms of public roads in the north end of the CANOL here, is that under GNWT’s jurisdiction in terms of public road maintenance and operations?

That’s what I’m afraid of in terms of the Mactung. If they go ahead, if they get the go-ahead to mine their deposit on the Yukon side, they are going to use the Northwest Territories side as a transportation corridor. I’d like to ask the Minister what type of alternative plans does he have in regard to having protection. We know this is a proposed park that was negotiated with the Sahtu Dene and Metis in 1993 and that we want this to happen. We don’t want to see any damage to this piece of property here. So we ask the Minister what is he prepared to do to work with the Sahtu to make sure this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to continue my questions to the Minister of ITI. Mr. Speaker, I’ve recently received some information that the Mactung, the tungsten mine at the border of the proposed CANOL Park, is going to go into some environmental hearings in terms of starting up the tungsten mine. This tungsten mine is one of the world’s largest tungsten deposits in the world and this is the start of the CANOL Heritage Trail. I want to ask the Minister what is his department doing to ensure that this piece of property, this part of the CANOL Heritage Trail or CANOL Park is protected in...

Mr. Speaker, would the Minister consider adding some monitoring stations at the border here in terms of monitoring the use of vehicles on the proposed CANOL Heritage Trail?

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of ITI in regards to the proposed CANOL Heritage Trail Doi T’oh Park. Mr. Speaker, I tabled some pictures of an expedition that happened this past summer in terms of land rovers from B.C. going way into the proposed park heritage trail. I want to ask the Minister of ITI in terms of his ability to work with the Minister of Transportation or ENR in terms of how do we prevent these types of land rovers from coming into some very sensitive ecological areas in the Mackenzie Mountains in terms of having these land rovers not coming into the Mackenzie...

Mr. Speaker, I want to zero in on the comment that the Minister made in terms of the commercial subsidies for these small businesses. Can the Minister inform the House as to what type of…When would this type of discussion come to the floor in terms of looking at our commercial subsidies? I know the program is in place and I know there is some controversy as to the effectiveness of this commercial subsidy program. Can the Minister tell me and the House here what type of discussion can come to the floor in terms of the commercial subsidies program?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the high cost of living in the Sahtu on various fronts here. I want to ask the Minister of ITI, when businesses in the Sahtu try to recover some of the costs because of the high cost of heating and power and these costs are also recovered through customers. I want to ask the Minister what his department is doing in terms of helping the businesses to reduce the cost of goods and services to make it affordable in small communities.

Mr. Speaker, I guess when I say in the Sahtu we don’t have any roads, actually we do have roads. They were built in 1943 and 1944 from Norman Wells into the Yukon. Now we have only 14 kilometres of that road. I guess I would ask the Minister, if I was to invite him, if he would come and walk with me on these 14 kilometres of road here. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask if the Minister would consider looking at some type of restriction on the use of vehicles. Vehicles are going to be coming more and more into this part of the road. Again, I would ask him if he would commit to looking at some type of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Some people are living in poverty in this wealthy Northwest Territories, but it shouldn’t be the case, and we here in the House have the responsibility to be creative and do something to change this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.