Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Spring has sprung. According to some calendars, spring arrived last week however to those of us living in the North, it usually waits a little bit longer. We are blessed with the return of longer days, and spring is a beautiful yet challenging at this time of year. As the snow melts on the streets and in our yards, on community trails and on ice roads, it reveals how we weathered the winter season.
Spring can be a metaphor of the past season. Potholes are a given. It is a right of passage of living here however as the snow slowly melts away, we see our beautiful Mother Earth littered with garbage and illegal dumping in the night that is akin to the illicit drugs that are after our most vulnerable. Abandoned items lean against garbage bins like the unkept promises to those suffering from trauma, addiction, and homelessness. Fast food containers and plastics are strewn about like the unhealed careless comments to family and friends and the endless trail of broken glass, cigarette butts, and dog waste, like the demands, wants, and needs of the entitled and privileged.
In the past few months concerns of the pandemic have taken a back seat to the challenges of debt, finances, cost of living, employment, addictions, mental health, housing, homelessness, violence, and premature death. Once again, we will spring clean as we always do. We will continue to take care of ourselves, our families, our communities, and our Mother Earth the best we can. We will discard that which is no longer useful and donate that which others can use. We will encourage that which will bring us together, to watch out for each other, to listen and be kind if that is all we can offer. We know that what we do to each other, we do to ourselves.
The opportunity is ours in this new season, to get out of our own way and create more meaningful relationships with each other, to engage in mindful and respectful dialogue. We can make the foundation, the ground, clean again as we intentionally prepare for the planting of seeds, seeds of growth and change. Our collective consciousness, connected like a dream catcher or a spider web, will set in motion how this upcoming season will be for everyone in our communities. How we choose to do this will be evident in the new growth that comes with the melting of next spring’s snow. I wish everyone the best in this changing of the seasons. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Members' statements. Member for Monfwi
