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In the Legislative Assembly

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Crucial Fact

Historical Information Norman Yakeleya is no longer a member of the Legislative Assembly.

Last in the Legislative Assembly November 2015, as MLA for Sahtu

Won his last election, in 2011, with 60% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters October 6th, 2015

Thank you, Minister, for the explanation. This request, in the previous discussions, could not have been foreseen that we’re going to be coming back to this Assembly to ask for a supp for the additional support that’s going to be needed for the opening of the Hay River health facility. So, hypothetically, the Norman Wells Health Centre could be in the same situation in regards to a supp because the planners didn’t sign this. If they would have, they would have put the money and it would have been done, already put in with the plan, the whole design here. But something happened that they said we need a few more dollars here to support the facility that’s going to be operated. I’m just trying to look at precedents being set, or has been set already and that the facility in Norman Wells could possibly, theoretically, be in the same type of situation where future government may have to look at a possible supp in regards to supporting that type of facility at the time that it opens. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters October 6th, 2015

Madam Chair, the question is to the Minister on this supp here. Couldn’t this be requested in the operation of this money? Why does it have to come into a supp? Are other facilities in the same situation as the Hay River Hospital in terms of the positions that are required? I know we have a unit, a wellness centre coming up in Norman Wells. Could they be in the same position? Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters October 6th, 2015

I’m certainly looking and being very optimistic as to the solar project in Colville Lake. People up there are looking forward to seeing the benefits. It could certainly reduce the cost of their consumption. There is a lot of money spent on energy, especially with their small co-op store that has a huge power bill every month. We’re certainly looking forward to that project and hopefully that will be duplicated in the other communities.

That’s the goal. Really, it’s the goal for the homeowner either living in public housing or their own private housing is to get a cheap power bill. A lot of complaints from my communities is the amount of money that we spend on good, reliable energy. We want that. When we flick our light, we want to make sure it goes on and stays on. That’s what we pay, the cost, and that’s where I’m wanting to use some of my comments here is to look at ways that we could have ultimately clean energy.

Hydro is one of the cheapest and cleanest energy other than natural gas or things like that. But we have a lot of natural gas in our area. The Norman Wells oilfield burns off a lot of natural gas every day. That flare stack is going off a lot, steady and constant since the ‘30s. I guess that’s my point, is that can we tap into the natural gas and to look at those other customers. If not, have we looked enough with the hydro in Deline? Have we explored it aggressively and persistently to see if this is a possibility with the money that we have?

Certainly, the Minister is correct. You and I and other Members had this discussion on the old becoming new. Going out there and harvesting wood for ourselves and making sure that people in the communities through no matter what can have a wood burning option, a wood stove, a good wood stove, and cut wood, that would certainly cut down a lot of other issues. Do we have that type of incentive so if people want to get out and say yes, I’ll cut a cord of wood? There’s an incentive to go out there to get the wood and to burn it and decrease their use of diesel fuel, because the fuel that we get is coming from outside the Territories, sometimes even outside of Canada, while at the same time we’re sitting on huge reservoirs of oil and gas and we’re not doing too much about it. That’s crazy thinking, I think. Why not use our own resources? Let’s look at that. Let’s not be scared of it and fear, fear itself. Let’s see what we can do for ourselves.

That’s where I want to end, with these energy types of discussions. Let’s start looking at our own resources and not be dependent on foreign oil or foreign gas here.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters October 6th, 2015

The Minister’s quite correct in terms of predictions of the future. Maybe down in this area here the water is low, but I know that up in our area the water is quite high. You know there’s lots of water in the mountains for the fall hunt, lots of water the people say when they go up to the Keele River to do their fall hunt. There’s lots of water up there. So we have to be very specific, not to generalize too much to scare off people here.

Now, the Minister has talked about a very interesting point on the future energy of the Northwest Territories. I sit in a region where there’s lots of natural gas and we have a potential for some hydro initiatives. Our studies show that we’re not in a good place for any type of wind energy, plus we could do some more work in the solar energy, but we’ve got a lot of fuels in the woods, in woodstoves and burning wood. I haven’t seen any type of creative thought to having wood as a source of energy for people in our small communities, not even to look at the possibility of tapping into Norman Wells natural gas to fuel our communities or even to go forward with the Hay River run-of-the-mill hydro. We see lots of initiatives south of Wrigley in spending dollars but we don’t look at the smaller communities, except we’re looking at Colville Lake. Actually, the world’s looking at Colville Lake at the solar panel and the diesel. Other than that, nothing in Good Hope except Good Hope has made some strong initiatives to bring woodstoves in and put them in the housing, or Tulita or Deline.

I think we’re a little frightened to look at the natural gas in Norman Wells. There could be a business case with ITI to look at how we cap in with the natural gas in Norman Wells to link up to our communities. It’s clean energy, it’s cheap and it could bring down the energy use and also there’s an abundance of that. Oil under the ground, the National Energy Board has estimated over 200 billion barrels of oil. Let’s not be afraid of these types of potential in our region.

I wanted to state to the Minister that we have these projects going around the communities but I have not seen much other than to have the solar panels. I’ve seen them. I drove up to Colville Lake and I saw them. They looked quite impressive. Test that out to see if it’s working well and the cost of their energy is going to go down, but other than that I haven’t heard anything from this government as to how they’re going to work with the community of Deline on their run-of-the-mill hydro plant. Nothing concrete, it’s sitting there and there are no dollars going towards that initiative to get it going. Look at the possibilities of a hydro transmission line from Deline to small communities. You can have pretty well one cent a kilowatt if you have that operation going over a long period of time.

So, Madam Chair, our region is sitting on billions and billions of barrels of oil. We’ve got to do something with that, even having a case built with this government to see if we can tap into the natural gas. Things like that. One of the ones that I think could fly, and I’ve heard it before, was to use wood as a source of energy in our communities with woodstoves, and that can benefit a lot of people, benefit our communities. So we’ve got to do something in that area. So, I wanted to remind the Minister, when you look at the additional dollars, to look at the communities that can benefit quite a lot and let’s use what we have.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters October 6th, 2015

Thank you, Madam Chair. The initiatives that Mr. Aumond has just spoken about, I’ll get back to them, but I want to ask the Minister in regards to the low water. Are we expecting, in the upcoming years in the next government, that will continue? Is there any type of prediction as to the low water that we’re dealing with in the Bluefish Hydro area that this government is going to be expected or asked to forecast a huge amount of dollars to offset the high cost of having that facility operate? The way I guess I understand it is that the whole Northwest Territories is paying for this expenditure. Is there any type of forecast that this is going to continue on, year after year we’re going to be baling out the hydro energy use used by people in this area? Thank you.

Motion 49-17(5): Dissolution Of The 17th Legislative Assembly, Carried October 6th, 2015

WHEREAS under Section 11(1) of the Northwest Territories Act (Canada), the Commissioner may dissolve the Legislative Assembly;

AND WHEREAS under Section 11(2) of the Northwest Territories Act (Canada), writs for the election of Members of the Legislative Assembly are to be issued on the Commissioner’s instructions;

AND WHEREAS under Section 3 of the 2015 Polling Day Act, the Legislative Assembly may, subject to the power of the Commissioner to dissolve it under subsection 11(1) of the Northwest Territories Act (Canada), continue until October 26, 2015;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that this Legislative Assembly request the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories to dissolve the 17th Assembly of the Northwest Territories on October 25, 2015, to permit polling day for a general election to be held on November 23, 2015;

AND FURTHER, that the Speaker transmit this resolution to the Commissioner.

Thank you.

Motion 53-17(5): Language Training For Senior GNWT Managers October 6th, 2015

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, October 8, 2015, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that the Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the GNWT consider development and coordination of government-wide programs to teach official languages of Northwest Territories to senior managers of the GNWT departments as appropriate to the regions which they are responsible;

And further, that the government provide a comprehensive response to this motion to the 18thLegislative Assembly by June 2016.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Question 936-17(5): New School For Colville Lake October 5th, 2015

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask this Minister, given the situation in Colville Lake where 10 or more students have dropped out citing their own reasons, within the life of this government is he seeing this as a crisis in Colville Lake? Can the Minister commit to going to Colville Lake with officials and the Sahtu Education Board to stop the students leaving the school by the time this government is finished? Can the Minister commit to going to Colville Lake to say he’s going to do something? Is that something I can look forward to from this Minister?

Question 936-17(5): New School For Colville Lake October 5th, 2015

One of the factors of these 10 or more students who have dropped out for one reason or another in Colville Lake could be because we don’t have a proper school to educate them. Because of this situation and working with Colville Lake, the Colville Lake Education Council and the Sahtu Board of Education have cut this year’s budget by cutting out high school teachers. There are no high school teachers in Colville Lake. This is why the community, chief and council are pushing strong that they get a proper school in Colville Lake. This has to stop, Mr. Speaker.

What is the Minister going to do within the life of this government to push this initiative into the next government?

Question 936-17(5): New School For Colville Lake October 5th, 2015

The families of the students that have dropped out of school for one reason or another are saying that the small building that is shared by all the grades, they cannot concentrate in that school. Colville Lake is looking for a solution. This should be up there and making the headlines. Ten students or more have dropped out of Colville Lake’s school, citing that the building is not adequate. These are the results of the situation in Colville Lake.

How can this Minister, since we have 20 days or so left in our government, move this to the next government citing this as an emergency crisis situation in Colville Lake and that they need to have a new school as soon as possible and start building their partnerships with Colville Lake?