Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly I’m a fan of the service centres that we established. I think that’s something that this government has certainly done well within our communities. Speaking with people who manage that office, they love to work with the elders and the elders love to converse in their own language in these centres. That’s a good thing. As Mr. Heide was saying about a checklist from the elders, especially at the end of the year, have you done this, have you applied for this. I check this for the seniors. Sometimes we get so busy, we forget things. If you have an elder coming...

Just a quick note there, Mr. Chair. The motion, again, recommends that the government increase its allocations to fund the e-learning. I heard some pretty successful stories and especially for our small communities to move people into the required educational careers that they want to go into with full confidence that they’re getting the required courses. Of course, the funding is being looked at through the Beaufort-Delta District Education Council, and they’re looking beyond its regions, and I certainly agree with Mr. Menicoche on other regions taking full advantage of this type of...

I’ll look forward to those mountains, as the Minister stated. My last question is on the adult and post-secondary education. Information I got from the department I am very appreciative of. It shows a number of technical training programs on our campuses in the Northwest Territories. Mine right now is the interest of the Sahtu students on these campuses. I have enrolment of campus and community programs in the Sahtu region of the students who are taking some form of post-secondary training or education. We have 81 students in those institutions today.

What type of career guidance do these...

I do hear the Minister about the $900,000 going into on-the-land programs for communities. There is something symbolic in taking a percentage out of the sale and directing that into communities for school programs, wellness programs, literacy programs or some kind of program in the community. That’s what I’m saying. He’s right, he’s saying the $900,000 going into the on-the-land programs. That’s no different from us changing from Nats'ejee K'eh. It’s still going to Nats'ejee K'eh. We’ve just shifted the will of the House here. I’m still not getting what I want.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we know the fact that we are making not bad money off our sales of buying liquor and the costs, and maybe stabilizing the costs here in the North. I guess my question is to the Minister. The main estimates are for the $25.372 million profit. I heard it before that the money goes into general revenues and they give it up. I know we passed a motion one time at least, to put a symbolic gesture to put at least a percentage to direct program services into alcohol prevention promotion programs in our communities. I am not too sure; the response wasn’t favourable from the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This can be also an educational process. If you look, for example, in the Sahtu, if you look at the fish scale artwork done in Fort Good Hope or the fish nets made out of willows in Colville Lake or the beading in Deline or the moose skin boat in Tulita, they all have meaning behind it. It would be nice to have a CD at the end of the project so kids can take it and then they can understand. Visitors can listen to it and say this is the meaning behind the art for this region; this is why they do this art.

I’d like to ask the Minister if that’s something that he can bring...

That’s a good initiative. I want to ask the Minister, in one of the projects do you sit down with an artist that tells you and documents why they do this type of work we call art? For them it’s love of their skill and they develop it. Why do women and men sit and why do they make moose skin boats that go to Deline? Why do they bead? What’s the document? Why do we sit down and make birchbark baskets, or go up to Ulukhaktok and why do they make these prints? What’s the story behind the art? What’s the real meaning?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I wanted to talk about the people who bring the inspiration of art into our world, from the people in Yellowknife, to Ulukhaktok, to Sahtu, to Deh Cho, Lutselk’e, right down the Mackenzie Valley and in all the Northwest Territories. I want to thank them for putting in the work that they do to make buckskin vests or jackets or painting or carving or something. It takes a real talent and patience and it takes a lot of love.

This jacket here was made by my mother and my aunties, when my mother was alive. In order to get this jacket, for example, and what my mom taught...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, colleagues. This motion is giving recommendations to the government to allocate from the resources that are already stated, additional funding to support some of our existing daycare facilities in the Northwest Territories and also assist in creating new daycare facilities in the smaller communities.

As I stated earlier, we have 10 communities without licenced child care services. In these small communities, the employment rate is not very high. Families are struggling with the high cost of living and child care. Young mothers and young fathers are trying to...

Thanks for the information. The communities in the Northwest Territories currently without licenced child care are Colville Lake, Enterprise, Jean Marie, Lutselk’e, Kakisa, Nahanni Butte, Norman Wells, Trout Lake, Tsiigehtchic and Wrigley. They are all in the same category: communities without RCMP and communities without permanent nurses in their centres. I want to list them for the Minister to reiterate that we need their support in the small communities, which brings me to something that I’m compelled to do and I’d like to do. I have a motion I want to read in the House on the daycare...