Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in favour of this motion. I would like to start off by thanking the Member for Frame Lake for the hard work that he has put in to bring this bill to where it is today. It is not easy for Regular Members on this side to draft a bill and to carry it through. I would like to express my thanks and congratulations to the Member.

Mr. Speaker, I was not planning on speaking at length on this, but I would like to put my support for this on the record. Mr. Speaker, I can advise you that when I became an MLA, I became aware of this issue, where I was not aware of it before. It was very much a constituency issue for me because a lot of people in my riding either work for the RCMP or for the military services in Yellowknife.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the work they do in this part of the country is as important as any they do in the rest of the country and around the world. This is a big morale issue for them. They feel that they are not being treated -- in fact, they are being treated substandard than they would be treated as any other Canadian citizens.

Mr. Speaker, I can also tell you that this is a subsistence issue. I have learned in my job in talking to these members of the military service that they really do not make very much money at all. The lower-ranking military service personnel make minimum wages and they do actually hunt for their food. I think a family of four expected to live at $25,000 is not -- I think we have a misconception about people's wages and people's living standards that we are not aware of.

This is very much an economic issue for those military families based in the Northwest Territories where the cost of living, as we know, is higher than the rest of Canada.

I think, Mr. Speaker, there is a very important issue here, and that has to do with our obligation as elected representatives and a Legislature to protect the Constitutional Charter of Rights that are supreme law of this land.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that whenever we speak about protecting our own rights, we have to always be willing and prepared to grant the same to those who are entitled to the same.

Mr. Speaker, we value the rights we have under the Charter. One of them is the residency of mobility rights. To ask these military personnel or RCMP who are not able to establish a residency requirement because they are being moved so often, to ask them to do something that they are not able to do has to be a violation of the Charter. They are not able to meet the three-year requirement in many cases. If they are only based here for three years and they have to spend two years establishing it, they would be asked to leave shortly after they become eligible to do what they want to do.

I believe that this is a very important issue. We should be thinking about the rights and privileges of everyone. I think it is possible to do this and grant them the equal privileges without affecting or delegating in any way the aboriginal rights of our aboriginal peoples in the North.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude by adding that I do not believe it is a sound argument or it is true to say that the amendments being proposed or the review process of the Wildlife Act will take care of this question. I believe that process rightly is one that is fair to address the questions and issues and implementation issues that come out of settled land claims and other negotiations between aboriginal peoples and Canada, and that is fine. I think this government has put a lot of resources to make sure that does happen.

However, this one is very precise and it should be immediate. I think this deserves the support of this House as a democratic institution.

Mr. Speaker, I could also add that in the resources that this government has put in for the review of the wildlife legislation, I do not believe there is any effort put in there whatsoever for groups like this to come before the review committee to have their say in this process. So in that manner, I think that having this bill go forward and have a second reading, and then to have some sort of a public input process through a committee review, would be something that would be the right thing to do for this Assembly.

For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in favour of the motion. I would like to once again to thank the Member for bringing it forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.