Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll ask the Minister in terms of the importance of language in our schools and putting some dedicated dollars towards the language programs and having the elders involved. Can I ask the Minister about his strategy for bringing the elders in? Because right now if you bring the elders into the schools there are some complications in terms of their salary, because they would be penalized by the federal government or our own for having additional dollars. That’s where there are some major issues. Can the Minister indicate to me if there is any type of strategy within the...

Recently the Minister indicated through his ministerial statement regarding the graduating rates in the Northwest Territories and the gaps between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. In terms of our languages taught in our schools, can the Minister indicate to me if there is any type of commitment that would strengthen the aboriginal languages in our communities so that we will see this gap closed in terms of having our students graduate with a comfortable level of their first language?

Mr. Chair, I want to say that the department has been very good in working with our contractors. I also want to say to the Minister that the contractors are doing an excellent job in terms of maintaining our winter roads, working with whatever resources we have with them. Sometimes we feel that the budget for our contractors to do a proper maintenance routine schedule is sometimes...It could be increased. Certainly with what they are doing right now, I think they are doing an excellent job.

I think that the department has certainly seen a big increase in terms of our winter roads. I want to say...

I wanted to see what the Minister has in terms of the seniors maintenance program. I know this program is out there and seniors can tap into it. There are already policies and regulations set in place. Would the Minister look at having this reviewed and see if there’s a possibility of having the corporation, band council, development corporation or a person in the community that they feel comfortable with will dedicate 100 percent of his time, the corporation’s time, to look after the seniors who are in homes and be sort of like their only sole client. That way, we could give some comfort to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to also ask the Premier when all the chiefs of the Northwest Territories gather and if they are going to draft a motion in terms of having some serious discussions on constitutional reform, there’s land claims settlements, there’s self-government settlements negotiated, that the Premier takes the motion very seriously for our people back in our communities who are represented by the leadership of the chiefs here in terms of bringing forward to, like Mrs. Groenewegen has indicated, the Assembly so we can have discussions. These are our chiefs that are speaking...

Mr. Chairman, the district offices that deliver these programs to our communities through the local housing authorities, they have the staff members, maintenance people. Is it something within the mandate and the plans for this government to look at ways that they could improve the efficiencies of these maintenance workers in the communities? That is probably one of my biggest complaints, is that the public housing units or the private housing units -- I know that is under a different program -- should be looked at because of the conditions they are in. The amount of workers, given the...

I certainly look forward to when we can have potentially this discussion about the constitutional reform in the Northwest Territories. When the Premier receives a motion from the Dene chiefs will that be enough to push him forward to say I have the chief in the Northwest Territories asking for a constitution reform. Would that be enough to bring some form of discussion on this side to say we need to look at how we’re going to shape the Northwest Territories and how we want to put it into the confederation rightly in Canada.

Mr. Chairman, I should have made a clarification. The numbers I am using are 2004. We had a discussion yesterday with the Minister and we look forward to the 2009 core needs report.

I also know that, through the Affordable Housing Initiative, they target Sahtu for 94 houses or units. I’m not too sure if they met that target yet. I think it is pretty close to it. I understand that there are some units that couldn’t be built in Colville Lake and some of the communities because of challenges that the corporation couldn’t resolve in time, so they had to make some decisions. I also understand that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I listened to CKLB on the radio the other day when the Premier was meeting with the chiefs and they were talking about a number of issues with the Premier. I got to thinking in terms of his dialogue this afternoon with the Member for Kam Lake about a going forward basis within the life of this Assembly here. I would ask the Premier if there’s enough discussion from the chiefs and other aboriginal governments to look at the Northwest Territories, as he was saying, in terms of the possibility of having discussions about constitution reforms and how the Northwest...

Today may not be such an urgent issue but as we get closer to 2038, this is very serious. I am just wondering within the life of this Assembly. Do we want to pass this on to the next Assembly here? Are there some things in play here that we should be aware of as MLAs in terms of urgency to get some movement with the federal government? I know the social housing issue -- he is right -- is going to be a big issue here in terms of what we are dealing with right now. Our hands are pretty well tied in terms of how we operate.

I don’t want to stay too long on this subject here. It does raise some red...