Date
October
25
2006
Members Present
ITEM 1: PRAYER
Assembly Members
Debates of October 25, 2006 (day 15)
Topics
Statements
Member’s Statement On Development Of A Comprehensive Vision To Address Resource Revenue Sharing
Norman Yakeleya
Sahtu
Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my Member’s statement will focus on the need to rise up as a nation of northern people and to ask ourselves a serious question: Are we going to die or are we going to wither away or are we going to survive as a nation, one North, one nation, in the face of the federal government by reaping our resources right under our land?
Mr. Speaker, I read a book titled “The Genius of Sitting Bull.” Sitting Bull used his leadership tactics to save his nation, his movement, his ways to get a goal done. Mr. Speaker, this tactic has been used today in multi-national corporations to save their businesses. Now, Mr. Speaker, why not consider using Sitting Bull’s tactics with the devolution and resource revenue sharing? For example, Mr. Speaker, we need a North who has leaders with a vision of the North to what the North can be. Gather the leaders. We’ve been told that the North will see all these benefits. We’ve been hearing for many, many years a North that can put together a plan of all leaders to believe in the idea that the North can survive on its own. We can make a made-in-the-north agreement.
We have talent and skilled people to provide us with the numbers, provide us with formulas to look at post-resource revenue sharing management agreements, post-devolution agreements. We have these people in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we’ve been told by the experts in our briefings, and Mr. Braden has mentioned about the potential losses for the North, of royalties, revenues, and the fact that we are a territory, not a constitutionally protected entity to fit in with the partners of Confederation.
It’s high time that this government, along with other aboriginal governments who hold a vast amount of land in the Northwest Territories, get together with the businesspeople, put a management plan together to go down to Ottawa and demand that these resources stay in the Northwest Territories where we can support our people in the Northwest Territories once and for all. Let’s get the job done, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
---Applause