Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions would hopefully stay within the confines of this bill here. I’m very interested in hearing what the issues are and the increase to the student financial assistance. Certainly, I spoke earlier in my Member’s statement of the struggles students have attending post-secondary education in colleges or universities. I want to ask the Minister, in regard to this increase, is the Minister, I guess… I’m glad to hear that the students are returning to the Northwest Territories, so is it to say that if a student has a loan and they come back to the Northwest...

Mr. Speaker, I certainly look for that information. I want to ask my last question to the Minister and to his colleague, that the Sahtu people have a land claim, a constitutionally protected document that was negotiated by the guidance of our elders in the Sahtu to take control of our destiny.

What type of approach is set by this department and this government on another protected area that is protected by the Constitution and jurisdiction as how do we work in relationship with land claim organizations that have these types of protection in regards to decision-making authorities on types of...

Mr. Speaker, the commonality that we have is there have been fracking operations in the Northwest Territories. Vertical, or the new one now we are using is called horizontal, so there has been fracking in the Northwest Territories.

I would like the Minister to provide me with more detailed information as to what type of impacts it had in those regions.

Have there been environmental studies? Is water being studied after that, or the air, the animals? That is so we have some baseline information as to where those actual fracking operations went in the Northwest Territories. Can the Minister do...

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...

Mr. Chair, I want to throw in my comments to the facility in Hay River. It’s a good facility and certainly I would support that. Madam Groenewegen talked about this in a previous session here, about having that facility maybe be considered with some work with the federal government and our government as a centre for excellence because we have a high population of people needing diabetes awareness and programming and stuff like that, that facility can be used for diabetes services for the people of the Northwest Territories.

According to the Health department documents, there are at least 200...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the concerns that we have also has to do with the geoscience work that’s happened up in the Sahtu.

Is the Minister also going to be involved in some of the leadership, some of the work that could happen that our people also can take advantage of the geoscience work that is going to be happening in the Sahtu?

The people in the Sahtu are looking at other opportunities due to the delay in the exploration work. I want to ask the Minister about the other opportunities that we really should talk about and what specifically.

Will the Minister come to the Sahtu to work and meet with the people in the Sahtu to continue this type of dialogue we’ve had in the last couple of days?