Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the Honourable Jake Ootes for nominating me. Like Mr. Erasmus said, I think we have some relatives right across the Northwest Territories. I too have some relatives right into the Inuvialuit area. In regard to what Mr. Ootes had mentioned about the different skills that we all have, I think I do have certain skills that have brought me down to this political area. In the area of communications, in dealing with the land claims in the past I guess I have not dealt with it, but apparently I have a lot of interpreting that I did with the land claims group. I can say that I was part of a land claims negotiating area. Regarding the answering of some questions in the House and the asking of questions, I do not think I had very many questions to ask the Ministers during the time I was in the office over here, but I would assume that a job that I am seeking probably has more answers than questions.

However, the reason why I chose to run for the ministerial position was that I think the community had more or less nominated me or asked me to run because some of the business people in the community saw that there is a need for the Member to have more representation from the North Slave area up here, because there are a lot of activities that are more or less stemming from Yellowknife and hardly any representation has taken place from the North Slave area. That is the reason why I chose to run for this ministerial position.

As far as the political arena, that I have been involved with ever since I was in childhood. I have for some reason gotten involved with international politics such as the United States and the Canadian political area that I was so interested in and then, although I did not know how to get in there, but eventually with my communications that I have been involved with, I dedicated all of my early life for the elders that had difficulty communicating with the political arena, so I guess it is safe enough to say that I have served them well, that I got involved with territorial politics, finally , about 1970. I did a lot of travelling and a lot of interpreting with the various religious leaders and international leaders as far as for Her Majesty the Queen, too, a little bit. That is the reason why, I guess, that the community more or less have trusted me, that maybe I might be able to hop in to become one of the ministerial positions on their behalf. I hope that my colleagues will be able to support the North Slave riding and I guess we do have a lot of work to be done in the future.

Our areas that I come from, some people are mostly involved with the land claim negotiation process at the moment. There are a lot of activities going on within our Dogrib area regarding the mining companies and I think that we, as the aboriginal people from the area, have opened the doors to the European people when they first came in to work with us, includes the mining companies back in the 1970s or in the early part of the 1960s. Most of our elders were opposing all developments and when the new government came in back in 1967, some of the young members from our communities decided to take initiative to run the community affairs under the municipal programs. One of my late friends, Charlie Charlo, decided to run for mayor and then he decided to run for the community and apparently he could run for territorial council election just so that we would be able to get a political arena off the ground for our communities. That is how we got into politics back then.

I gave you some other reasons why from 1975 I did not seek re-election, but I drifted into different areas. I have been involved with mobility, so I finally, the community young people, decided to organize me to run for territorial election again. That is the reason why I am back here again. What the future holds I would not know, but like I say, it would not hurt for a Minister's position and then, if successful, that I might be able to drag me into the next territorial elections again. That is the reason why I chose to run for leadership this time around. With that note I would like to thank my colleagues for taking time to listen to my little comment as to what my predictions were. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

--Applause