Debates of August 22, 2007 (day 15)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just spent the last couple of days attending the Water is Life Conference in Fort Smith. There were 400 delegates that registered for this conference. They came from across the Mackenzie River basin. We had representatives from the Sahtu, the Deh Cho, Akaitcho, South Slave, North Slave, all across northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. We had the grand chief from the Deh Cho, the grand chief from the Sahtu, the grand chief as well from the Tlicho. The issue is very clear that there is an abiding interest in what is happening with the water, and fear that things are not all and well when it comes to that particular resource, the resource that gives us life.

Mr. Speaker, the elders have met. The general registrants were meeting today, but the message has come from every corridor that there is concern, that there are things happening to the water, that there are resource development projects especially in Alberta that are having enormous impacts downstream in the Northwest Territories, and the need and the call to aboriginal governments and the concerned stakeholders as well as the territorial government to take the steps necessary to better protect the water and the land. We cannot sustain the kind of development, the untrampled development. We have no idea of cumulative impact either in Alberta or in the Northwest Territories in terms of all the resource development that is on the drawing board or are currently in place.

The fundamental concern is for the future generations, the ability to actually drink the water out of the lakes and rivers, that there is going to be wildlife available for the children and the future, that the communities will, in fact, be able to continue to live on the water.

There are going to be recommendations coming out of this conference. I hope they are very clear and strong. I carried the message that there is going to be a new government that is going to be in place here in six weeks and that the issue of the environment is going to become centre stage and have to be tied very closely to any economic strategy. We need that balance. People want to see that balance. That is going to be what the people tell us, I believe, from what I have heard so far at this conference. I look forward to those recommendations. I would like to thank the Akaitcho chiefs for organizing this and all the organizers that made this possible. Thank you.

---Applause