Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we were given the basic recommendation for the involvement of respected elders in community-based counselling programs and the promotion of the use of the skills of our elders, I couldn't help noticing that when we get into the recommendations, there is not very much about what use these people are. It is all to do with what kind of help they can get, what kind of access they can get to people who can help them out and the problem of abuse, et cetera. In fact, nearly all the recommendations seem to treat elders as if they are only victims. I appreciate that the report has pointed out that we may be a bit hypocritical in the Northwest Territories, in that we always talk about the tremendous respect for elders and how highly we esteem them, yet if you look at the records, especially of many of the community meetings, it is clear that there is abuse and this group contains people that have to be protected. There is an awful lot of waste too. I've had people make the comment that elders are trundled out into the open when they are needed, when we need to show the public how much we think of these people, then we make a show of them. There is a degree of hypocrisy there, sometimes. For the most part, it seems to me elders are ignored.
Although this particular recommendation talks about making help available to elders who need it, it doesn't really follow from the paragraphs which talk about the involvement of respected elders in community-based programs. Many of them do have a role. Not more than six months ago, I was in Iqaluit and a respected elder made this point to me, one of the biggest problems that young people face in our communities is they don't have anybody to talk to. They can't talk to their peers, they can't talk to their teachers, and they can't talk with their parents. There doesn't seem to be anybody that you can go to and talk, with some degree of confidence, to get help.
It is seen as a gap. There are older people who have all kinds of knowledge and wisdom, and so on, and yet, we don't seem to find ways of using their abilities. Although I'm not speaking against any particular recommendation -- which I welcome by the way, the idea that we do have an enthused group of people who have too long been ignored and undervalued -- we should also look at other ways in which older people can have a useful life. Just because you are 65, doesn't mean that you should just be pushed in a corner and brought out when people figure you can help the community look good.
I welcome the idea of the recognition of the need to assist those people who are abused. But, I think we should also find some way of recognizing that you just don't throw people on the dump heap because they aren't as active or physically strong as they were at one time. Mr. Chairman, every single person in this room -- if they are lucky and follow a good life -- will become old one day. That's what is going to happen to us all. You wouldn't want to think that when you reached the age of 60 or 65 that suddenly, you have no value, no use and that you are thrown upon the waste heap and forgotten about. Thank you.