Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is quite rare that I look forward to reading newspapers or getting a newspaper, but the Mackenzie Times published in Fort Simpson is an exception. Not so much for the news it contains or the editorial comments that are, in themselves, okay, as the issue warrants but, Mr. Speaker, I always look forward to the back page of the Mackenzie Times. There is a column entitled, "Northern Heritage." The editor, Joe Mercredi, who is originally from Fort Smith, is a product of a very colourful career culminating in the editorship of a newspaper, among other things.

He has managed to capture the true essence of a northern history recount. I, and many readers were born and raised here, in the north, and grew up at a time when great changes were happening here and abroad. The problem at that time was, unlike today when events can occur anywhere in the world and we hear of those events almost instantaneously through our communications network, we did not know what was going on. About 40 or 50 years ago, when I was growing up, it took months to get news and the news was in bits and pieces here and there. It was difficult to link those things together given our communications at the time.

The Northern Heritage column brings much of the northern history together in a series of articles recounting those events. Each week names bring back a flood of memories: the old steamboats; the Royal Canadian Corps signals; the Hudson's Bay; and, the church. But, by far the most interesting articles I read, which really plucked away at my heart strings, have been the articles on the residential schools that Mr. Mercredi seems to have gleaned from a number of books and, of course, the grey nuns. This is the latest article that has been featured in this column.

It goes back many, many years, back into...