Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, I talked about the incidents that the CBC reported on Norman Wells being the number one community of oil and gas leakage, fire, injuries and pipeline integrity. I want to ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources if there is a reporting protocol and why doesn’t it include any type of notification to the public on these incidents that CBC had to tell the world on this type of stuff that’s dear to our hearts.

Thank you. Now that we know, I’d say we are paid to solve problems. Let’s do this together.

I’ll have questions for the Minister of ENR at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I ask for a recorded vote.

That’s fine. That’s good. No more questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems that we have a disconnect. The Minister is asking the Aboriginal governments, the communities, to give us the proposal for on the land. The communities are saying this is what we believe is an on-the-land program and it seems that we’re not connecting as we need to sit down together and talk about this. We do have the proposals, I’ve seen them myself and I actually passed them on to the Minister.

Would the Minister then say, okay, Fort Good Hope, Tulita, Deline, Colville Lake even, we think we have a program. Let’s work on it together. I’m asking when can the...

Thank you. It’s said that we need to think like our ancestors had been thinking. They knew the culture and the customs, Mr. Speaker. The culture taught them how to live in harmony with each other, so the people are saying we need to think like this again and that we must rely on a power greater than ourselves and that they don’t need alcohol in their lives.

So I say this: When will the Minister present a concrete on-the-land program for people in the small communities so they can take advantage of this service and this program?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to recognize two distinguished couples, Andrew John and Marie Therese Kenny and John and Camilla Tutcho, who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaries on September 23rd in Deline.

These two couples are well respected throughout the Sahtu communities and the North for their traditional knowledge and traditional contributions to our youth.

On behalf of the Sahtu, I’d like to congratulate them and wish them a continuous lifetime of happiness. Mahsi cho to their children and grandchildren.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues, for giving your thoughts, your opinions, your analysis to this bill that is being asked by the Sahtu people. I have been asked by the Sahtu people as a legislator – as Mr. Miltenberger put it so eloquently, as legislators we do the unpopular, bold initiatives to represent your people on whatever issues. When you have your people pushing you for a resolution or solution on an issue such as alcohol, the impacts in the Sahtu region, then you listen to them and you work on their behalf.

I am here before you because we have chosen to do the right thing...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bromley, for the question. When we start to have the oil and gas coming to the Sahtu communities and start to explore for the oil and gas, that could be beneficial to the North and the Sahtu people. The comments by our leadership were starting to look around at the lifting of the liquor sales at the Norman Wells liquor store and we’re starting to see that, with the additional work and the amount of work that’s in the Sahtu, and the lifting has certainly contributed to the amount of liquor being purchased at the Norman Wells liquor store, even to the point...