Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I travel to the communities in the Sahtu, the people talk about help they need at the community level with their families, especially with the elderly people. They talk about their hope that they have some support with wellness workers. They thought that when they had the Sahtu health board, they would get this kind of help. They thought that with the health board they would initiate on the land cultural programs. They thought that people in Colville Lake would get help, and they would have on the land programs for the people and the issues they had to deal with.

Mr...

Mr. Chair, the question I have here is with the Chief T’Selehye School in Fort Good Hope. To be very brief, the community was offered to negotiate this school with the government. Under our land claim agreement there’s a chapter that somewhat supports contracts with the government. I know the different interpretations, different needs. I just want to know: would the government have made an offer to people in Fort Good Hope to look at it and negotiate a contract rather than a two tier RFP construction of the school?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to ask a few questions of the Minister. I want to ask the Minister: in terms of renovation or replacements or small repairs to the schools in the Sahtu, where does that fall? Does that fall under small capital projects such as the Colville Lake foundation or the Norman Wells school or Délînê? Is there funding there? I don’t see it in the book.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question that I have for the Minister or his staff is that when the communities ask for additional space in these facilities such as Inuvik or even Tulita, the community had to buy into the deposits. The community had to upfront some money in terms of additional spaces that they need, and then the community put the funding to, say in Tulita, the addition of a stage to the gymnasium. Now that the budget has increased significantly for the Tulita school building by just over $20 million, the community is asking why they had to put an extra $400,000 out of community...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier in terms of the initiatives he announced earlier in the life of this Assembly. The initiative I’d like to talk about is a small community committee that he initiated. There are certain challenges these small communities that we represent have to deal with.

I’d like to ask the Premier, in terms of the status of this specific committee, when we could see some light of day in getting this committee off the ground.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister inform this House as to the status of the water resource management strategy? When can we see the final version?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke about the Mackenzie River and the protection that is going to be required through some avenues with the territorial government and the federal government and also with the Protected Area Strategy. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for ENR: in terms of living up to the commitments of the Protected Area Strategy, what is the current status on the Mackenzie Valley five year action plan?

Thank you. I look forward to that information. I hope I can get it before we leave the House on October 24.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the responses. My question now is going to focus on education in terms of the capital infrastructure for the community museums.

The communities at times have seen not much of a contribution, even though they appreciate and are looking at ways they can get involved. So I would also ask the Minister responsible for the museums if I can get some detailed information on what they are allocating to the community in terms of community museums.

I have to reconfirm those facts with my community. I’ll see what their interpretation is or how they got the sense of how this work was progressing in Fort Good Hope, because I certainly have a different opinion hearing from my community in Fort Good Hope. I have to go through that process, and I have to follow through later on in terms of the response I got from the deputy minister.

Mr. Chairman, I want to look at when we have construction like that in our communities. As I said before, sometimes these constructions…. We certainly appreciate it, because it’s needed in the communities. The...

Mr. Chairman, the community of Colville Lake certainly appreciates the portable school that they have and the work that the department is doing. Because it’s fall time now, they want to look at some of the preventative heat loss in terms of having the department supply some skirting around it. Time is of the essence, and they were asking when they can see a certain time frame as to when this project could be implemented in Colville Lake.