Norman Yakeleya

Thank you. We have voted for these positions in past Legislative Assemblies, past sessions, and still we’re having a difficult time and I’m on board with Mrs. Groenewegen. How do we create some things to do something exciting, something that would fill these positions?

Mr. Blake talked about getting the young people back into our communities or somehow get the northern people back working again. So I want to ask the Minister, on these positions, what happens to the dollars when we vote on them and now we found out there are 800 vacant positions that are not yet filled? What happens to these...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Finance. On page 3 of the fiscal strategy of the budget address, the Minister says some of the areas of concern are hundreds of vacant jobs in the Northwest Territories. Then he goes on, and part of that paragraph that I want to focus on, but the Minister also stated that in there, is that they want to embark on an initiative to increase the population of the Northwest Territories in five years.

I want to ask the Minister, in the vacant jobs – there are hundreds of vacant jobs – how many vacant jobs are there in the Northwest Territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly appreciate the commitment the Minister is making in this House for the residents of Norman Wells. I also ask the Minister if he would be willing, when some sort of a plan is in place, that he come to the town of Norman Wells and present this plan on how we are going to help the residents of Norman Wells with the conversion as to what requirements they need and what programs are available to them, or what type of loans we will give them as a government. Also, I will ask the Minister if he can inform his federal counterpart. Where is the federal government on...

I would ask the Minister also if this could be done as quickly as possible, because there are families, people in Norman Wells who are looking at the conversion. Right now they are saying, who is helping us? Which government is there? Imperial Oil is giving a little bit of a hand, but yet they are left with the bulk of the cost of the conversion.

Can the Minister come up with some solutions as soon as possible? For example, maybe setting up some loans through the Housing Corporation office. We have to come up with some solutions, so I want to ask the Minister, can this be done within this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some time ago I sat down with an elder in Fort Good Hope and listened to the elder. One of the phrases I got from the elder, after listening to the elder, was “our land is holy.” I was trying to figure out what the elder was meaning.

Some time ago over the past several months, the Sahtu people have lost three dearly loved elders and a young mother and a young grandmother. These elders passed away some time ago, one last week and certainly the young mother from Deline, and they returned back to the land.

I recall when I was a young man in Tulita when the elder was talking...

I certainly look forward to the speed of light communication that we have with today’s modern technology.

I want to ask the Minister, once we have looked and identified the gaps, we look at the residents and the people of Norman Wells. They say they are short $10,000 or $12,000. Will we have the means? Can the Minister put together a funding project, a budget somewhere saying that will help them so that they will not be hurt so much financially? That’s what I’m looking for, is somewhat of a commitment so the residents of Norman Wells can know that the government here is looking to help them on...

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Finance, the money man, on the question with the residents of Norman Wells. They are going to be shutting off their natural gas by Imperial Oil and converting their utilities, and there are quite a few families in Norman Wells that just are doing their best; they don’t have the extra 15 or 12 thousand dollars to make a full conversion for their residence.

Is the Minister of Finance working with his colleagues or the Town of Norman Wells to look at the number of families that are going to require the additional 10, 12, 15 thousand dollars to make that...

Thank you. With this idea that the Minister is putting out there, would he be able to, within this fiscal year, direct his staff to work with the other departments such as Justice, Health and Social Services, and Education, Culture and Employment to look at a new structure of a program through their working groups or the committees in the Sahtu to say this is something that’s unique, it’s different, where we can support these younger adults that want to learn about trapping and their way of life?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of ITI. Yesterday we talked about education with Minister Lafferty, and another view of education is with the hunters and trappers in the Sahtu region. I want to ask the Minister of ITI what types of programs we have for our on-the-land professors who want to take out young students to train them how to be a good hunter and trapper, and also to be a good person.

What kinds of programs are there that young people can apply for and what types of programs are there for the elders and trappers to take these young people on the land to sustain...

I just want to thank the mover and the seconder on this motion here. We’re talking about education, which has been a long-standing issue in this government. This is not something new. Over the years, as an MLA, and as the Minister is well aware – this issue is not new to him – we’ve been talking about the quality of education for a long time. Whether it’s in Yellowknife or it’s in the small communities such as Colville Lake, we’ve been talking about the quality of our education and the quality of our certificates that we give our Grade 12 students, called diplomas.

When I read that we’re the...