Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, would the driver education program have a schedule in a Sahtu community high school for these driver education training programs, that every so often the instructors will be coming into these schools where there’s incentive to receive a credit, get to school, and every three months that in one of the Sahtu communities you’ll know these young students will be receive one type of driver’s licence. It will do a lot of wonderful things in terms of increasing their self-esteem, once they get a driver’s licence.

Thank you. I want to continue on with the Minister’s interesting topic that we are discussing. It’s a huge infrastructure for the facility and talking about the remand inmates that are in there. These are the inmates that are still waiting for court trial, so we don’t know if they are guilty or not guilty. They are still going through the court process. For that reason, they are limited to certain programs anyhow, as I understand. I have talked to some guys who are on remand who are in there and they do a lot of sitting. They don’t have much programming there, because they don’t know if they...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask the Minister and I need to get a sense and a much compelling way as to the fencing that we are going to be spending within the Justice here. It’s quite a considerable amount of money, as our communities have been looking for daycare centres, daycare homes, and other necessary, essentially needed infrastructure in our communities, and we are continuing to spend money in this area. There may be regulations. There actually may be laws that might put us in a liability situation if we don’t do anything; however, I’ve had a bitter pill to swallow just as we were...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I’m really happy with what the Minister is saying, because of the situation for families in Norman Wells and the businesses. Is there any type of indication from this government or through the Ministers as to the number of people who are willing to look at biomass energy or wood pellet or situations that will help them with their conversion? Is there any type of updated report that says, yes, we can do 10 families now or we have to wait until later on? Is there a status report? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s my final question.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. It is quite an impressive list, the resource dollars that are allocated to these programs. The Minister did indicate that there were programs that were over-subscribed or some are on a waiting list and the numbers that are given don’t seem to be enough for what I’m going to ask in terms of helping out the residents and businesses of Norman Wells.

Can the Minister then make a request to the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee to top up the funding to help the people in Norman Wells? As I stated, the conversion is quite high in Norman Wells and we are looking for...

I appreciate that, again, from the Minister. It sure helps me with questions I have from back home and from my people in regard to the initiatives some of the staff from ENR are going to do up in the Sahtu region, because we’re at the critical point of entering into possibly a huge oil and gas development in the future.

My last question will be this to the Minister, and it has to do with the wildlife, and we’re looking at the wildlife in the mountains west of Norman Wells and it’s close to the oil and gas exploration points of interest. Is the Minister looking at any type of monitoring on the...

I imagine we look alike, Mr. Speaker. I just found out I had a family member that was a Page from Hay River. Michaela was part of my family, so I wanted to recognize her and I found out something new this week. I also want to say thank you to Tony for words of wisdom that he told me some years ago that saved my life. I just wanted to say thank you very much.

Just on this question here, I may be ruled out of line or order here. I want to ask about the infrastructure on the baseline studies. Has there been any type of monitoring from the department on the areas around the Sahtu that are going to do some oil and gas activity, on the air monitoring quality, the water monitoring? Is there any type of infrastructure that’s going in next year to help us with our decision on the oil and gas activity? I’ll just leave that in your judgment, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The well is definitely running dry in Norman Wells. As a matter of fact, by next year, October 31, 2014, taps will be turned off to heat the residences in Norman Wells.

We need to help the people in Norman Wells keep their homes heated and keep their businesses running. At this critical point of survival, now is the time to switch, time to make it a priority of this government to help the people through these types of situations.

I want to state, clearly, in this critical situation for us in the regions, we need to put the people first. We must not leave anyone out in...