Thank you. I have just a few comments. For the vision of the Northwest Territories, I was really curious in terms of seeing if our government will ask some of our elders. Now, I can see clearly the vision. Now, I see. Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger...
---Laughter
...to ask our elders to ask about the visions for the Northwest Territories. Our elders have always given us visions and stories about our land and people. They have a vision about the Mackenzie River. They have a vision, believe it or not, about the pipeline. My grandmother talked about the cruise missiles coming through the Mackenzie Valley way before it came down the Mackenzie Valley. They had stories. It would be very interesting in this government here to ask our elders, who have some special knowledge about this land -- we've been here for thousands of years -- to ask them what their thoughts are on the vision for the North. They surely can help us about the land, especially about how we take care of it and how we are supposed to take care of the land in light of the development that is going to come down here. I guess I would like to see if this Northern Strategy process would incorporate some of our elders, a special room that would give us some stories to help us. I think that is one of our keys here, is to get the elders involved in this process here. Right down the Mackenzie Valley, we have wonderful old people who have stories, visions and prophets, things that would happen for the Northwest Territories.
What are we to expect in the life of this government? I certainly would like to see some development happening
in our region in terms of possibly a two-lane highway in the Sahtu to Tuktoyaktuk in terms of infrastructure. Health services for our people in the small community, maybe our vision is in Colville Lake, we can see the doctor more than what happens now. We see a dentist twice a year in Colville Lake. Maybe we can see them longer. Those old people there really look forward to the vision of the North. Mr. McLeod said that there are lots of resources here. How come some of our communities don't see some of the services that other regions take for granted? That puzzles them. Those things that we look forward to, in terms of some of the basic needs in our communities, that the other centres take for granted. That is just the way it is. But, hopefully, we could change that around, that our old people could stay in the region rather than fly out. So those are the things that mean a lot.
That is why I say, Mr. Chair, that when we look towards our leaders and Ministers, people back home say those are our leaders. We have to support them. You ask us, we give you words. That is what they told me back home. You are our leaders, so we give you words. The same thing goes back to our Ministers. They are our leaders. They are the ones that are working on our behalf. So I am glad that Mr. Handley had this discussion here in terms of a strategy for the vision of the Northwest Territories. They are asking us what the vision is for the Northwest Territories. What are you guys doing? What is our vision? They have all these resource developments. We have all of these things going in the Northwest Territories. Give us something to look forward to. We can say with pride, maybe down in Ottawa, maybe down in our communities, we can say this is what we plan for the Northwest Territories. What do you think about this? They have to look for something to keep going. We have the Mackenzie gas project possibly coming through. We are not too sure if it is certain yet, but there are lots of good talks of it coming through. People want to see something of benefit from that project. I am more interested to see what kind of results you get from the discussions from the communities and from my elders. You have to get to the elders. I don't know how you are going to do it, to listen to them. There are not many of us in the Northwest Territories. We are very close in terms of our families. But the smaller communities really want to see the basic needs at least being met. That is what I want to say, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
---Applause