Norman Yakeleya

When you have a company such as Imperial Oil renewing its water licence for the next 10 years and stated in their submission that they are going to be taking out close to three billion litres of water over the 10-year period and putting back 1.5 billion litres after it’s been recycled through its plant, this states specifically to the chapter in our land claim agreement where our water will not be altered, the quality of water will not be altered, so the baseline study, I guess, is asking and I appreciate the Minister citing that there is the water monitoring, field testing or it’s actually a...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, March 6, 2014, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the government identify at least two priority communities for new nursing and/or policing services and provide those services within the 2014-15 fiscal year; and further, that by December 31, 2014, the government completes long-term plans working with community governments and including timelines for implementation to expand police and nursing services into the communities...

Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting things that the Minister pointed out was baseline studies in the Sahtu because of the ecological sensitivity of our area. Are some of the baseline studies near completion, and I take it that that’s going to be used as guidelines for the policy that could come ahead in the next couple of months or so. Are the specific baseline studies being worked on and computed as we go through this whole new exploration on hydraulic fracking?

I hope to hear something quickly from the Minister so that I can pursue this needs assessment in the Sahtu. Like I said, I’ve been on the Sahtu winter roads over the last couple of days, and I went to Conoco and Husky, and I went into the Wells and Tulita, and certainly there is a huge cry for training for the young people.

I want to ask the Minister, once he receives the report, could we look at the Sahtu needs assessment report and bring it to a Sahtu exploration readiness forum, conference, so we could start matching up training dollars with oil companies and the needs in the Sahtu?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the weekend I had the opportunity to take a tour to the Conoco lease and the Husky lease up in the Sahtu region. Certainly I took the two days in to look at the whole operation, check out the operation in terms of the campsites, the workers, the oil and gas drilling activities.

When I went to Conoco’s lease, I saw a lot of young people working there, young people that were quite happy. They were talking about their work and it’s something they look forward to, getting up and going to work rather than sitting back in the communities and doing nothing. They are...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, March 5, 2014, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment be required to ensure that there is at least one fully trained early childhood educator worker for every junior kindergarten group before the program is implemented; and further, that early childhood education workers be recognized as educational professionals and paid wages accordingly; and furthermore, that Aurora College immediately implements a training program that...

Being on the tours and being in the communities and looking at the number of young people we have in the communities and the availability for them to take the opportunity to work in government or oil and gas or traditional economy, I would think that this Minister would be right on top of what’s going on in the Sahtu. They’re spending well over $100 million, Conoco alone; Husky is spending over $10 million. The Minister needs to be on top in saying we have close to 500 youth that need to be supported and we need to support them in whatever industry and skill they need to build.

So, I want to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. In the Sahtu we have about 489 youth between the age of 15 and 24 years of age, according to 2012 stats. I recently questioned the Minister of ITI on the Sahtu oil and gas needs assessment. We have close to 500 youth who are in this category. We have an industry up there. We have a strong need to start training our young people so they can stop flying in workers from the South. These are from all the Sahtu communities.

I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, is the Sahtu oil and...

Given the high interest in the oil and gas industry with all these contractors in communities, there are a lot of other programs going on, but right now the oil and gas industry is hiring a lot of people. Specialists are coming into the Sahtu to do a couple weeks of work then fly out. I’m looking at a training component base that’s strong in the Sahtu with the interests of the oil and gas being the main economic drivers this winter. We’re looking at this training program to the Sahtu needs assessment to be ready so that we can jump on the activity that’s happening now.

I want to ask the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are related to the oil and gas needs assessment training. I wanted to ask Minister Ramsay – I know that he was working closely with the Department of Education and Culture and the Sahtu was going to complete a needs assessment on the Sahtu oil and gas training needs – has that needs assessment been completed?