Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My colleague Mr. Abernethy talked about gatherings, conventions, the capacity of communities to accommodate people, and the appropriateness of some communities to accommodate certain discussions and dialogues. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report to the House that on October 16th and 17th, last weekend in Hay River, a group of representatives of community organizations interested in preserving the cultural and historic heritage history of their communities gathered together in Hay River. They held their meetings at our little Hay River Heritage Centre, which is a very down to earth kind of a grassroots... It doesn’t seem like that discussion would have been quite the same if it had been held at the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre here in Yellowknife, because these are people from communities where grassroots individuals in the community are trying to volunteer their efforts to preserve the history and importance of some of their cultural distinctiveness in their communities.
I am pleased to tell you that there were about 20 people in attendance at this gathering. They came from the Aklavik Interpretive Display Project, the Fort Simpson Historical Society, the Fort Simpson Heritage Centre Society, the Inuvialuit Cultural Liaison Centre, the Northern Lights Museum and Cultural Centre in Fort Smith, NWT Mining Heritage Society, NWT Arctic Ambassadors Program, the Hay River Museum Society and the Hay River Visitors Centre. Also in attendance at this gathering were representatives of the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre and also a representative from the Canadian Heritage department in Regina. These folks served as facilitators and resource people for this gathering.
Mr. Speaker, this summer we had the pleasure of attending the 10th anniversary of the Hay River Heritage Centre. I would like to publicly thank our Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, the Honourable Jackson Lafferty, for attending that relatively small grassroots event. It was a very small town, but very nice. Mr. Lafferty showed up with his entire family, which meant a lot to the people who have put their heart and soul into collecting the artefacts and creating our little heritage centre in Hay River, not on a big budget, mostly with volunteerism.
I would particularly like to thank Vicky Latour and Peter Osted in Hay River for being the backbone of a strong volunteer board in Hay River for doing that. I think the conference will encourage people from smaller communities to realize they can play a part in preserving a culture and a heritage. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
