Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk to the issue of the transboundary water agreements that this government has undertaken since the Minister has taken the lead on this. The transboundary water agreements are very important, especially from our neighbours in the south of the Northwest Territories, specifically Alberta, because of the development that’s happening in the Alberta province and that the flow from these rivers have come from the majority of the rivers here.
I want to talk because in the Sahtu Land Claim Agreement it speaks to a chapter where the quality and the quantity of our waters would not be altered by any type of development and we would know for sure that our water will remain the same as it was when we started to negotiate our land claim agreement.
I understand that the Minister has been working very hard and the staff has been doing some excellent work on concluding some of the agreements, and I wanted to ask the Minister how this will affect our land claim and people’s water in the Northwest Territories, especially around the area of Great Slave Lake, coming down the Mackenzie River with the recent spill of the coalbed incident last year and the water monitoring stations along the Slave River, around the Great Slave area up around the Mackenzie River. This agreement will have an impact to ensure that future generations will have clean quality drinking water. A lot of the animals rely on the Mackenzie River, people who live and trap along this great river.
I’ll have further questions to the Minister on the transboundary agreements with the provinces that we’re dealing with. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
