Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Sahtu has provisions within the land claims and the Sahtu Land Use Plan and, of course, our own co-management decision-making authority with our Sahtu Land and Water Board, so we’re in the driver’s seat on this issue here.

I want to ask the Minister, in the analysis of the report that came out by the academic experts, I’m not too sure if they looked at our authorities in the Sahtu to have this issue being looked at. I want to ask the Minister, other than the Sahtu region getting the attention on this hydraulic fracking, are there other fracking operations in the...

In the report that I briefly read, the summary, are there studies that we are already undertaking? We have the Sahtu Land Use Plan put together by primarily the elders in the Sahtu where they’re saying there’s development and there’s no development. I mean, our elders put this Sahtu Land Use Plan together over 15 years.

I want to ask the Minister of Environment, because the environment is very close to us. The elders know what they’re talking about. I want to ask, in regard to this report, is there any type of evidence that we’re doing right now that says we’re doing more than what the report...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to having this needs assessment discussed within the Sahtu, the leadership and the communities. I want to ask the Minister as I’ve also been pressing with the help of my colleagues on a feasibility study with the Sahtu technical institution, and that’s going to be greatly needed in the Sahtu. I want to ask the Minister if he can provide the House and the people in the Sahtu, where is that specific project at, at this moment now?

I want to let the Minister know that I would like to continue tracking the types of support services that are going to be looked at for continued support for our Aurora College students and in our institutions. I also want to say to the Minister, I would like, one day, to see our learning centres in our small communities take part in the celebration like we have done in Fort Smith, Yellowknife and the Inuvik campuses. We have had a good celebration in our own communities in our learning centres.

Is the Minister looking at ways that we can improve our community learning centres so that one day...

I want to acknowledge the families, their communities and the students themselves for a job well done. Graduates are role models. We need to look at how we can continue to support them.

Lastly, I want to thank the campuses of the communities of Fort Smith, Yellowknife and Inuvik and all the Aurora College centres in the Northwest Territories that support these students. Mahsi cho from the MLA for Sahtu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will certainly take your advice on this one here and I will make comments on his opening comments. I will follow that procedure.

Since these are opening comments, I do want to say that it is good to have students who are going out from the North or in the Northwest Territories, especially from outside the Territories. It encourages them to come back and bring these skills back with educational knowledge and be positive role models in our communities. I know that Aboriginal students are taking advantage of it through the grants. I know a grant is only limited and they...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, June 2, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, that the Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services devise a system of compensating medical and non-medical travel escorts for their time, with the goal of implementing the system in the fiscal year 2015-16; and further, that the government provide a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, also I would ask the Minister, given in the time of the ‘70s, what type of authority, what type of working relationship and if it’s possible that when that fracking operation happened at Beaver River. I’m not too sure where exactly it is and what type of impacts we are seeing today in 2014 from that operation even though it is a vertical frack. A frack is a frack is a frack. I want to ask the Minister if that is possible.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to continue on with my question on the issue of hydraulic fracking. I want to ask the Minister of ITI in his capacity with this information.

I spoke to one of the leaders from Fort Liard. The leader had said that they did have some fracking in his region. Have there been any other types of fracking in the Northwest Territories in the last 15 or 20 years?

The technique that I understood from Husky and Conoco’s personnel, and of course our own research in our communities, is that the hydraulic fracking would go down about two kilometres underground. Some of the other fears that people have is that there are only shallow wells that will be hydraulically fracked. That’s not the case in the case in the Sahtu.

Is there any type of method that can reassure the people that when we do hydraulic fracking underground two kilometres, that if there are any type of tracers that you can put in the fluid that shows that the actual chemicals are coming up out...