Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had a Member’s statement prepared today, but hearing the lead that’s been taken by some of my fellow Members with respect to the federal cuts, I think I’ll change my topic and talk about that very subject.

Mr. Speaker, this summer some of the Regular Members had the opportunity to go into some of the small northern communities here and see some of the living conditions. We went there with a theme to talk about the cost of living, but we really saw the conditions of living. Something that really stuck out in my mind is, when we went to the community of Fort Liard we had a small gathering of people there and somebody who had just moved from Newfoundland to the Northwest Territories stood up before our committee and said, I thought Newfoundland was poor until I came to the Northwest Territories. He was talking about the living conditions, when he talked about mouldy houses, when he talked about the lack of services, when he talked about having to send the little kindergarten children home from school on their first day of school because the teacher had to leave the community, more than one teacher had to leave the community because there was no place for them to live when they got to the community of Fort Liard. They had to turn away, and the little kids that were looking forward to starting school that day had to be turned away.

Then contrast that with our new Prime Minister Stephen Harper coming here and standing in our Great Hall talking about the mighty resources of the Northwest Territories, and talking on the world stage about the Northwest Territories and Canada, Northwest Territories being a part of the Canadian image of an energy superpower. Where are we talking about the energy coming from? Where are those natural resources coming from? They’re coming from here. Yet the extraction is going to take place and the people of the Northwest Territories are still going to be living with the worst social conditions in this country. The statistics are there. All you have to do is look at the rates of suicide, you look at the rates of addictions, you look at the rates of everything which is a negative social indicator and I’m sorry, but the Northwest Territories and northern Canada wins the prize. We’ve got the worst conditions. We’ve got the most resources. I hope the federal government doesn’t just look at us as a bastion of revenue and royalties and money flowing into their coffers, because we need to keep a portion of that money here in order to serve the needs of our people so that we do not have them living in the conditions that they’re living in today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause