Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General’s report was tabled in the Legislative Assembly on March 4, 2014. This year’s performance audit focused on child and family services. The department is responsible for the overall management of the child and family services system, and the director of child and family services has key obligations under the act to protect children from harm, abuse and neglect. The regional authorities are responsible for assisting the director in fulfilling these obligations.

Many lives are touched by the child and family services system. Across our jurisdiction over 1,000...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I heard a quote from somebody that said, “never tear down anything unless you’re prepared to build something better in its place.” The last couple of days I had the pleasure of meeting with the Tulita leaders, and I want to thank Premier McLeod and the Ministers for making themselves available to sit down with the Tulita leadership to talk about some of the issues they are dealing with today.

What I got from the Tulita leadership meeting with the Ministers and the Premier is that we must keep moving forward no matter what happens. We can either sit idle or we can move to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up on Mr. Bouchard’s questioning I believe it’s around the existing facility in Hay River. I would like to ask about that facility. Are there any plans once the old hospital in Hay River is not being used and there’s going to be a new hospital there in operation? Thank you.

The leadership wants to talk about that we do have a high population of graduates in the next couple of years. We’re looking at the training opportunities and career development.

Again, are there opportunities? I want to ask the Minister, in regard to these, are there opportunities, as the leadership talked about, specifically with ITI to support them to advance these opportunities like the Canol Heritage Trail, the Mackenzie Valley Highway, training institution that we could have in the Sahtu? Is the Minister willing to support the leadership in advancing these types of proposed projects...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement, I talked about the Tulita leadership meeting this past couple of days, and again, I appreciate the Ministers and the Premier making themselves available on the short notice.

I want to ask my questions to the Minister of ITI. Due to the delay in further work and the exploration work in the Sahtu, work will still continue on the Husky road. They will continue doing environmental studies and some seismic work this summer.

I want to ask the department what type of department planning initiatives will continue to ensure that the people in the Sahtu...

There are 10 Aurora Collage graduates this year. What are the training opportunities? We’re looking for a Sahtu technical institution. We have 295 people in the Sahtu today who are capable of working, plus more that need to get to work. We had income assistance decrease a million dollars when there was work going on in the Sahtu region.

The point I want to conclude is our people want wellness. They want to have wellness of our people, on-the-land programs, a transition home for people, and they want to get our people to work. The message is that we want to work. What I want to say in closing...

What I am hoping from this Minister is saying yes, let’s look at some out-of-the-box type of solutions. I’m really happy the Minister talked about possibly income support. Can the Minister sit down with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to say listen, we have an issue here because of the bureaucracy, because of the timetable, we just aren’t able to meet the current needs right now of what’s happening. The issue is medical escorts that need to be compensated by people in the communities. It’s okay here in Yellowknife, you can drive your car and head over there, but from the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve wanted to tag team with my colleague from the Mackenzie Delta on this issue of medical escorts, especially paid escorts from our small communities. When I returned back to Yellowknife, I met a constituent in Deline that talked about him going out with an elder to escort the elder out, but the elder is going to be in the hospital for about a month or so and he said I just can’t afford to stay with him for a month or so. We need to do something with the medical escorts, so I’m glad that Mr. Blake is raising it today.

I wanted to ask the Minister, between the RFP and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to join you in welcoming back the Members from a good spring and from a good spring hunt if you went out and did some spring hunting and come back to work. I want to use this Member’s statement, as I did in my last sessional statement, to offer my condolences on behalf of the Sahtu region to all people who have felt loss in their communities of their loved ones. From time to time, as I said in my last statement, we get so busy with our jobs and as we do many things in our small communities, especially when we have close relationships with our family members...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister commit to the House before the end of this session that the conversation has been had with the Minister, we’re looking at options, again, what can we do within the session here? I’m looking for some support, some direction, so when we go back to our communities we can say yes, the government will look at this. This is for all my communities in the Sahtu that there will be some compensation when medical escorts are asked, you know. That’s the type of support I’m looking for. I really don’t know. Maybe if I was on the other side I would have some...