Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to say a few things on what Mr. Kakfwi was saying. He said a lot of things. I don't necessarily agree with everything he is saying, but it is true that there was an attempt made between the Deh Cho chiefs and the Sahtu chiefs to settle this boundary. As he said, there was a pending claim and the position of the Deh Cho was not taken seriously by people in the Sahtu because they had a lot of pressure, so they just went ahead to the boundary. The final decision to have that boundary was not made with Deh Cho involvement. Perhaps it is over for Mr. Kakfwi; that the federal government legislated it and we should all be good little Indians and fall into line with what the federal government has done. But as a Dene, I have been a fighter against the federal government for many years, so this is nothing new to me.
But to say that it is the fault of the Deh Cho because of this boundary is not fair at all. I agree with Mr. Kakfwi that it should be settled between the chiefs of the Sahtu, Nahendeh and involving the Metis people as well. That is who should decide because between those two people, there has never been any comfortable agreement on where the boundary should go. Perhaps it went that way in their claim, but they didn't claim all the area along that boundary. Why should the boundary be along that area because it is in their claim area?
These are the things that have to be discussed yet. I don't think it is fair for us to debate it here and make an agreement at this time. There are people from the Sahtu who came to the Deh Cho and made overtures to us, to see if they could be included in the Deh Cho First Nations. It was discussed at the Deh Cho Assembly and it was agreed there to have these people involved with us. We didn't make great political posturing on this. In fact, this is the first time it has been mentioned in this Assembly. It is a really hard issue to deal with and I am not here to make anyone feel bad about what is going on out there. I am here to represent the people who sent me here. I did just that. I sent this book out and when it came back, everyone was quite surprised that the boundaries had been changed. I agree that if people knew that these boundaries were going to be changed, I am sure there would have been a lot of participation in it.
I don't think the Deh Cho is coming out with unrealistic positions. This is the position we have been standing on for many years. I don't like people trying to make us look bad because of this line here that should have been settled many years ago in the honourable Dene way of sitting down and talking this out. Now we are debating this line in the Assembly. I just want to make sure that people in my area are protected. I propose this amendment and it is up to people in the House to support it or not. Thank you.