Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am not what is called a "linear thinker," Madam Speaker. So I try to get as much in my Member's statement as I possibly can and hope that people can take the messages from it. My statement today owes its origin to three different sources. The fact that we met with the representatives of the Treaty 11 chiefs last night and I had a chance to think about the way things must have been in 1921. This week we also discussed the extension of benefits to hunters and trappers and the fact that there is some concern that perhaps things that go on in the bush are not that serious and we should be looking at their benefits.
Also what prompted my statement today, Madam Speaker, is the continuing debate between smoking and health. I read the other night, Madam Speaker, in the case of snow blindness, many, many years ago it was the custom that if a man were to become snow blind -- on the kinds of days that we're having just about now -- to drag the partner into the bush, open up the eyelids and then proceed to wipe the person's eyeballs with the tongue. That, in fact, cured snow blindness. However, the text I read from by a Metis elder, which was recorded about 100 years ago, was that you don't allow your partner to do that if he is a smoker. Because, if you smoke and you try to cure snow blindness, then the nicotine from your tongue would, in fact, make your eyes even worse than they were before.
The message I'm giving today is that those people who live in the bush really are afraid of becoming sick, they're afraid of injury, they're very careful and this little incident from the past indicates the degree to which people were really concerned about safety and conducting themselves in a way that make their way of life a safe occupation. Thank you.