Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Three points I want to speak on in my opening address. It has to do with the motion that the Sahtu Secretariat passed at their meeting. The Sahtu Secretariat asked if the Aboriginal governments and the First Nations governments and the Government of the Northwest Territories talk about a process where they can sit down together and start discussing constitutional development. It’s imperative that the Sahtu people want to have this discussion to continue to protect the dignity and culture of the Sahtu people, more so now that they have a land claim. They want to know how we will continue to coexist in the future and what type of laws will uphold the Aboriginal way of life.
We are creating a new home. A devolution agreement is not too far away. The Sahtu people are saying that they need to sit down with this government here, and with all First Nations governments and look at how we’re going develop this new constitution in the Northwest Territories. That is what they want to do.
Another thing that the people in the Sahtu region have some problems with, and I want to talk about the land and water board restructuring and the regulatory process that’s going on. When the Sahtu Land Claim was settled, it was in the spirit and intent that as much control would come to the Sahtu people in the communities. Hence, the reason that the board was set up. People wanted to have this when the land claims were negotiated. Governments agreed. We shook hands on it. But now we look at it. The government has found a way to open this very important chapter and say we could do it without going back to the table. We don’t know if the governments shook hands in good faith or if their hands were held behind their back, crossing their fingers, saying that’s okay.
This is not fair, it’s not right and it’s not just to the people in the Sahtu. I say this because I was the chief negotiator in the Sahtu Land Claim Agreement, and I know that when we sat across from Osborne, the chief negotiator at that time, that this is what the people wanted in their land claim agreement. Here today we talk about some McCrank report. All reports say we need to streamline. We’re doing fine in our region. If we go ahead with that report, we’re going to take the control out of our region.
Government has a funny way to work and get its way. I think the word is bullying. That might be something that we want to look at with the federal government. This issue here was talked about when I talked to the chairman in the Sahtu region and Norman Wells. Basically, he said what are they doing. We don’t have an issue with this. That tells me that the federal government has a plan, had a plan that totally disregards and disrespects the spirit and intent of a negotiated deal that we had. We made that deal. We went to the communities and we told them about the deal, and I truly believed David Osborne when we shook hands on this deal. But somehow it seems that is not the case.
History is repeating itself. Broken promises once again are being told, are being seen, and we’re witnessing it.
My last point here has to do with my discussion last night – actually, yesterday morning – with one of the leaders in the Sahtu communities that talked about the government policies. Some of them work against my people and their culture. For example, having traditional foods at government facilities such as the Aven Manor, the correctional institutes, the hospitals. Why can’t we get the Aboriginal foods into those systems? We always seem to come up with policies and policies that say we can’t do it. Our people grew up on wild animals, caribou, fish, seal, ducks. But when you come into a government system, they have so many papers that it discourages you from bringing food into our facilities or helping our elders with their life in the community.
Our culture teaches us to go into the people’s houses and help them with medication. We went to Colville Lake. Two old elders live there and their nephew helps them. He said, you know, one time I went there and they were taking their medication and these elders couldn’t read or couldn’t understand how much medication they took. Then they are taking them and after awhile they were walking around like zombies in their house. It was kind of comical when the guy was telling me, but that’s the case of how we come to this day that it makes it hard for people to take care of the elders.
We have just completed some budgets. We just completed how we want to do the operations within the government for next year. I hope this government and ourselves here look at how we start bringing some of these programs to the people, but more so, change some of these programs that could fit the people’s needs in all our communities.
These are my comments for the opening address.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 9, written questions, on the Order Paper.
---Unanimous consent granted
