Thank you Madam Chairperson. I would like to thank the people that did come forth regarding the public presentations that were made in all the different communities and regions. I believe that this is the turning point. I always thought that division was going to be a bright light for the Western Territory. What has happened within the last three months, I think it is a pretty sad time in history that we have to sit here and deal with this decision which was put in front of us with no real options to weasel your way around by using different wording, taking the time to find a workable solution, and also have the ability to sit down with all interested parties and work out a solution to this problem.
I think the biggest losers in all of this is the relationship that has been worked on for 20 years, regarding aboriginal people's desires, expectations and goals of some day being able to deal with their own problems, programs and services and be a positive light in the society of building of a new Northwest Territories. The reason I say that is because I have been involved in the land claims process going on almost 15 years. I started off as a young man with lots of ambitions and hopes that I would see something positive come out of doing something for the people I represent. To be able to see those people being proud people as they were in the past and having the ability to take on their own healing programs, developing their own human resources by being independent, by owning their own construction companies, building companies and by having an economic base that they can depend on without depending on the government and Yellowknife.
The problem I see here is that we have mechanisms that are in place for this government and the future governments that will have the ability to change the path for aboriginal people. Being in this House almost four years, I have not seen anything that I can say is positive. We have a Northern Accord process which we put as one of the priority items of this governments. We had community development programs for community wellness. I raised a lot of issues, a lot of concerns from my riding. We have some major problems in our aboriginal communities. We have some major health problems with the people in our aboriginal communities. We have some major problems when you have six, seven people in one house. You look at the statistics of where the aboriginal people are versus the non-aboriginal people when it comes to jobs, when it comes to life expectancy, when you come to realizing that we as a government represent the aboriginal people just as much as the non-aboriginal people.
What I see this government doing is that there is a wall up between aboriginal initiatives and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Every time aboriginal people want to take two steps forward, they are pushed back three steps. I mean that in the context of where we have gone and our progress in land claims negotiations, where we are going with self-government negotiations and where we are going with the Northern Accord process that this government is involved in all three aspects. There is no positive process in those areas.
Something that just popped out of the sky one day and gave us the diamond mines. It did not take long for this government to come up with the resources to develop policy in diamonds and also having the resources to develop training programs around that industry. The communities are crying out for developing drug and alcohol programs, such as the ones I have raised in the last four years in regard to the Tl'oondih program. Community initiatives regarding Aklavik, wanted to look at the Knute Lang Camp. We did it with 24 Members in this House which had the majority of rural Members from the eastern Arctic and also the west. In regard to making any progress on those areas, it was awfully difficult. And we can see in regards to this House on issues, where people stand. We can use issues such as negotiated contracts. Negotiated contracts are more in the context of aboriginal communities and giving them that ability to eventually be competitive. What has happened to negotiated contracts? Basically, it has come to a point now where there are memos being passed around saying that so and so does not support negotiated contracts so there are no more negotiated contracts. That was a positive thing that this government could have continued to do with aboriginal people, but instead they decided to sweep it under the rug.
The same thing comes in regards to the issue of health care. Aboriginal people, in a lot of the smaller communities who have petitioned this House, who have gone on public radio, television, raising the issue of health care in aboriginal communities. Look at where we are today. I feel that after this formation of a 19 seat Assembly, we are going to have some very dire times still ahead for the small rural aboriginal communities. We will be 20 years back to where we were when you had appointed a commission for representing the government of the Northwest Territories from Ottawa. Because it is the same concept, you can take Yellowknife or you can take Ottawa. It is the same mentality that is always going to be there.
Talk about developing programs and services in our communities and our regions and what I see happening with this bill is that when will those issues come to this table to be debated regarding the economic benefits, negotiated contracts and policies, housing initiatives, the rural communities will be outvoted every time on any issues. Easy. They will not have the ability to deal with rural issues and vote on it and have the support behind you to get them through because the resources will all be based in the larger centres.
I, for one, feel the aboriginal community will pull themselves together. Maybe now it is time for aboriginal people to really stand up for themselves and pull away from the central government and develop the regional institutions of government and fund and get away from the notion that they support a strong central government and start supporting strong regional government because, at the end of the day, that is the only place I see you getting anything. This bill, the way it sits right now, will drive a wedge between those aboriginal communities, the rural communities and the urban centres because of numbers. It is such a drastic change in numbers and the biggest impact that is going to be felt is going to be in the smaller rural communities. I think we have to look at differences between those communities to say, "Where are you going to be after the 14th Assembly?" Thank you, Madam Chairperson.