Norman Yakeleya

Thank you. The 500 youth that we have in the Sahtu, they’re ready to work, they want to go to work, but they need the support to develop the capacity and the skills for themselves. I’m very happy that the government is looking at a Sahtu training institution for the Sahtu, the feasibility study is happening, I’m glad for that. The Education, Culture and Employment office is looking at the labour pool needs. The Minister said it’s available. When is it going to be complete so we can start to look at working with ITI to bring this type of training forward to the next Sahtu readiness exploration...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The oil and gas exploration is going to slow down sometime at the end of this month, so we need to jump on this opportunity as quickly as possible. When the Minister says sometime in the future, I’m hoping that between the end of March and sometime in September that we will have a training program offered to the people in the Sahtu based on the needs assessment and what’s needed now to help our people get jobs, get the training and build capacity. Can the Minister commit to having this forum prior to September?

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...

I appreciate that. I am certainly looking forward to any type of correspondence from the board of governors or the Minister himself. We know that we approve the funding for Aurora College, we approve this, this is the money that they are going to get for infrastructure. They don’t come to us and ask for money, they go through the Minister. We know that. It’s up to us and that’s what I’m asking. The buck stops right here with this Minister and Aurora College. That’s a given.

I want to ask for more, stronger, I guess you can call it, commitment, or working together or working closely, but we see...

The income assistance, I certainly hear the Minister will work with them to support any type of policy or regulations or assistance to get the families out to live on the land. Certainly on this page it talks about working towards a greater self-reliance. There is no greater self-reliance than having your family out on the land and relying upon each other, which also means there are risks. Families talk about those risks and talk about improving the quality of life. There is no better life than getting on the land and working, hard work but working together. I take my family out on the land...

Thank you. Just a few questions. My first question is on the Senior Citizens Supplementary Benefit Program. I know at one time – and maybe the Minister can help me out here – that some of our seniors didn’t know about the Guaranteed Income Supplementary Benefit from the federal government. They weren’t applying for it and it has to be applied for every year. Some of the senior citizens were wondering why, after one year, their income cheque was down low again. Is there something within the department where the workers notify, maybe through the service centres, to fill out these guaranteed...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few comments to this. It’s really speaking about reallocating, and people are hearing us in the communities. We do that on a regular basis. We see that, we allocate a few dollars here and there, we do things that certainly we want to see projects in the communities. This is a statement from this side of the House to say that the Early Childhood Development Initiative that we have taken on and the government has been working towards is a top priority to meet the objectives of the 17th Assembly, so what we are saying is that we, as a government, could do it. I have...

I look forward to that information given the long, continuous push from my side, at least, to have elders in schools. I thought the Minister would have the information on hand because it’s such a high priority for me to have elders in schools. I am a little bit disappointed the Minister doesn’t have the information at hand to tell me how many elders are in school right now and how the education boards are working as to what ways of putting these valuable professors into our schools. I will leave it at that.

My second question I want to ask on the culture and heritage section. This afternoon I...

So, Mr. Chair, the funding has gone to the school boards. Is that correct?