Thank you, Mr. Chair. There were many things spoken around the table the other day. I am going to talk about ones that hit close to me, in my heart. Of course, we heard about trust and building relationships. We've been talking about that the whole day.

Another one that I heard is they kept saying, "This is a historical meeting." This government's been in operation almost 50 years. I've heard that. We've been trying to sell these negotiations for over 30 years, and this was a historical meeting? That's not okay. That, for me, was a priority. I think that we need to take ownership and apologize and do better, because we can do better on that one.

The other thing I heard: is their offer willing to help to deal with the social issues? Again, I try to see, whenever I hear stories, I try to think how that would make me feel. Twenty years ago, like I said, I went and got a degree in social work, and I made a conscious decision as a P1 candidate not to work for the GNWT but to work for non-profit organizations, because I felt that non-profits needed my support. They do a lot of support, a lot better services in all honesty than sometimes the government can because they are not stuck in those boxes that say, "You have to do this" job description.

Many years ago, I came. I left the Northwest Territories, and I took a job for my own career in Salmon Arm and was a minister in a family support centre. A couple of years into that, I got a call from the Yellowknife Women's Society, our homeless shelter for women. Women, some of our most vulnerable populations. They said, "We are going to close the door, Caroline. Please come back and help us." They were in debt $300,000, so I left my job in BC because my commitment is here and my heart was with those women and I had worked many years with them. I came back to the North.

I spent a couple of years, actually, and I brought them out of debt and they are doing well now. I had gone to the government for many years before I left here and said, "Please, you are trying to make us survive off $30,000 for funding. We are losing women. We don't even have food. We are not paying our staff. We are picking choices and saying, 'Who gets paid today? Who has children and needs to get paid?'" We were feeding them hot dogs that we were throwing out because we didn't have the food security programs in Yellowknife. People were bringing food. Staff were bringing food from their own freezers to feed the women.

I tried a different tactic, and I went to the government and said, "Okay. I have been crying for 20 years. Arlene Hache has been crying. Everybody has been crying to help us, and you haven't heard us. How about if I help you? I don't want money. Let's work together." And still the government said, "Thank you, Caroline. Thank you very much." We do that very well. "We will call you if we need you," and they never called us.

I heard yesterday the word "colonization," and you know what? That is exactly one of the priorities that I have, because if we are going in there and we are saying that we are going to work with Indigenous governments but it is on our terms because we know better, then we are starting the relationship on the wrong foot to start with. We need to sit down at the table and say we are all equal here, because none of us is better. Self-government is not about us telling them what to do. It is about them defining their own future to be the best for all of us.

We need to stop, and sorry if I offend Members, but sometimes we are very colonistic in our approach, and we need to stop doing that. We need to sit down at the table as equals, as equal governments, government to government, not one government over the other. Thank you, Mr. Chair.