Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have many, many people watching us today and I think people are becoming aware that we are continuing to make history. There will be those that take leadership roles and those that will become a little afraid and apprehensive and ask for more time. We should be aware that we are still seen very much as a foreign institution by many people in the communities. Little things like Orders of the Day, our rules are confusing to people. They come into the legislature and all of a sudden they are told to be quiet, can't clap, can't laugh and they can't say anything. It's completely contrary to all the rules they have about how they make decisions back home in their own communities in the aboriginal institutions.
Our job is to try to bring dignity to the governments that we come in contact with. We should say and we should recognize the reason for people fighting all these years for aboriginal rights and self-government is because this government was never seen as good enough. The whole reason the Tlicho agreement is coming to us is because people are telling us we're trying to make it better, here are our suggestions. In this case, this agreement is between governments. It's between the federal government, the Tlicho government and this government. We shouldn't fool our constituents into asking them what do you think about aboriginal rights. That debate is over. We don't want to ask people if they support aboriginal rights or not.
I say we have an obligation to go out there and inform people about what the agreement is, I agree with that. But don't fool people into say do you agree with it or not, what do you want me to change? The fact is there's very little we can change. If we can change anything at all, it's the nature of it. It's an agreement that is going to be constitutionalized and it's going to be ratified by the federal government, and it has already been ratified in part by the Tlicho people. No one is going to go back and jeopardize this work by starting to tinker with clauses.
There's a reason for what I'm saying, because I think we have to be honest about it and we have to provide a certain kind of leadership. In this case, I think our constituents are going to look at us and say as my elected representative, what do you think I should do. How do you want me to think about it? It's our obligation to say this is an agreement between governments. It's the government that negotiated it. They've done that within the rules of this country, and it is for their better judgment. That's what the government says they're going to do. You can go further than that and say in my best opinion I'm going to support it and so should everybody else. I don't know if that's going too far, but I know it's been done before.
When extra seats were being debated in this legislature, I didn't run home and ask the Sahtu people what I should do. I didn't ask them. It was about the rights of people in Yellowknife to have more representation, based on population. I didn't go and ask them what I should do with the rights of Yellowknife people. I took a stand and said I support it, much to the chagrin of my constituents and other aboriginal leaders, but that's what I did. I went into an election and got re-elected. That's what leadership is about.
I know that it's very close to election and we have to do some soul searching about how strong a stance we can take. It does take courage. I think if you look at the history of aboriginal people, we come from a time when we had no vote, we had no rights. This country stood up and said it's not in the Constitution, we don't see it in the rules, we don't see it in our institutions, you don't have any rights. We have processes and we have institutions, but we don't see you having any rights. We come from a time in the Northwest Territories when that was the rule of the land, and aboriginal people have taken the time to advance that. It takes a lot of courage to bend the rules and say this doesn't really follow the laws of this country and this institution to be prepared to take a leap of faith.
Some leaders in this country did that some years ago. Sometimes they were prodded by the Supreme Court of Canada, but it has been a long, hard struggle for everybody. And we're not there yet. If we think we have the credibility and the backing of all aboriginal people to be and to continue to be the Government of the Northwest Territories, we have to take stock here because I don't think we're there yet. We're getting there, but we're not there yet.
This is an offer to be partners. This is an offer, but the Tlicho could say we can make this a better government, we're going to endorse it. We're going with a public government, we're going to go with a partnership government. That's what I see here and I think again we need to take a stand and not be afraid. Maybe we skipped some steps and people are uncomfortable with it, but the fact is we're here. We're not back last year or even two weeks ago, we're here, we have to make a decision. As imperfect as this process is, this institution is, take a leap of faith, vote in support of it. This government will gain credibility, it will gain substance, it will gain support.
I said in Fort Rae in front of the Prime Minister, in front of everybody, one thing you have to understand -- and it applies to all the other aboriginal groups -- if you take care of the Tlicho, the Tlicho will take care of you. And it applies to this government particularly. They have taken a bold step to say we will partner with this government, we will take care of this government by endorsing it. That's the statement here today, it's not in the technical clauses. We can't get mired in what steps we've missed, we don't have time for that.
So I know there's due process, there's expectations from our constituents. I think we have to be honest with our constituents. Take a position of leadership, tell them what in your best judgment needs to be done here. There's a lot more at stake than this particular agreement, there's still a lot of other work to do and they're waiting for us to make a definitive statement and we should do that. Thank you.