Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I talked about the elders in a parliamentary system that would require further discussions on a constitutional level. I want to talk with the Minister of Education and Culture about education and culture and do it one step at a time. Can the Minister look into a PTR system with our education schools in the Sahtu region in terms of how we involve elders in a system to help youth? Especially, can the Minister consider that as an option to get elders into our education system?

It has been over how many years that the community has been saying this in terms of Plan of Care? My community of Colville Lake, over a number of years, has been saying this. The chief has called me; people in the community have called me. They’ve said, “Why don’t we get to work and get them to talk to us? They come in here and they scoop up the children and they bring them outside.”

I guess we’re waiting for the implementation of a good program. We’ve heard some good things from Fort McPherson. When are we going to see dollars that match these good words? It’s long overdue. Again I ask the...

Mr. Speaker, I’m advocating strongly for the elders in terms of doing the right thing for our people in communities. How long have we been trying to get elders into our education system? There have been so many doors closed in their faces.

Mr. Speaker, I want again to say to the Minister that you have an opportunity and the Assembly here has an opportunity to do the right thing and get the elders into our schools. The doors have been slammed in their faces by the federal government, the territorial government. The PTR system might be an avenue that would say: yes, we will have elders in the...

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister to reconsider and put this as a priority with the PTR for elders and the residents in our schools. As I said earlier, we are losing the elders fast in our regions, in our communities. With them we lose the knowledge and values of our people. I would ask the Minister if he would strongly consider pushing for an initiative on the PTR to be discussed at this Assembly so we could talk about it seriously in the House.

I do appreciate the Minister’s directive in terms of language and culture in our schools, but we need something more permanent to include elders...

In May of 2008 a Senator, Aurélien Gill, an elder and former chief of the Montagnais, introduced a private Member’s bill in the Senate. This bill proposed to introduce a third House, an assembly for aboriginal people, into the parliamentary system of Canada.

Senator Gill believed that such a third Chamber would give the aboriginal people of Canada a voice in political decision-making. This idea has history. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommends the introduction of an aboriginal parliamentary act. The concept of an Assembly for aboriginal people was also discussed in the...

Mr. Speaker, 42,000 people in the Northwest Territories own the Power Corporation. This government acts on behalf of the shareholders. We have a Minister that takes care of the Power Corporation. We now have a new committee of Ministers — the energy coordinating committee.

I want to ask the Minister of the new coordinating committee, Mr. McLeod, in terms of the mini hydro initiative. I talked about privatization and partnerships; it’s a very complex issue. I would ask the Minister if the mini hydro initiatives in Whati, Lutselk’e and Délînê are on target, are they going to be supported by this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, want to join my colleagues in talking about the high energy cost situations in our small communities, which Mr. Krutko, the Member for Mackenzie Delta, alluded to.

I would like to talk about the concept of privatizing our corporation. We have a Crown corporation. There are a number of arguments that say: don’t privatize; don’t get into community ownership; we’re too small or we’re not well equipped to have a Crown corporation go into the private sector. I think that’s totally wrong. I think you have to give the ownership back to the people.

There are major...

Would the elders be involved in terms of carrying this traditional knowledge into the government in the system we would have? Would there be a place for them to bring this traditional knowledge to the forefront?

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the hard work the Minister is doing in terms of moving this type of issue forward for our own people. I’m very happy. I would like to ask if he can tell me, if he’s privy to the information, how much concrete strength we’ll have on a government-wide approach in terms of putting traditional knowledge into the government’s present policies and regulations and making it stick, in terms of his report, with certain programs and services.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to this information getting pulled together by the NTPC to look at the community.

I would ask the Minister again: in terms of some solid commitment to the people in the region can these meters even be looked at by the Housing Corporation to see what they can do to implement this in public housing? Give us something to take back home. Give us something that even the private homeowners can have to be responsible for in terms of the power. That’s what I’m looking for.