Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. speaker, this has been a good discussion here today and I am happy to see it's coming onto the floor of this House, because in committee we talk about resource revenue sharing a fair amount. I won't give you any of the details, of course, because that's against the rules, but some of the quality of debate that sometimes goes on behind closed doors, I am glad to see it's coming onto the floor of the House here because northerners need to hear where we stand on this.
The resource revenue sharing aspect of our aspirations here quite often overlaps and is interchangeable we think
with resource development. Those two subjects are related, but sometimes when we talk about wanting a good deal for resource revenue sharing, in our frustration sometimes we say let's just stop development until we get it. Then, of course, we hear from all the folks who are poised to benefit from resource development. As Premier Handley said, the young people out there are looking forward to jobs and opportunities and businesses that are looking forward to contracts and things to do. So sometimes in our desperate desire sometimes to get some kind of a good deal going forward, the deal could stay in place for generations to come. We can't afford to ink a bad deal for the Northwest Territories. We've seen other provinces and have had to live with the consequences. We can't afford that.
We feel that our leverage and our ability to affect Ottawa on this subject is limited, so we get frustrated sometimes. I come from a community that prides itself on being pro development and often referred to as the business centre in the South Slave and hub of the North and activity for communication and transportation and the service industry. There are definitely businesses that have evolved and have grown and matured over the years in the North that are poised to benefit from resource development. But I just want to make it clear today that sometimes when we just look at the near future, we think let's go for all the development that we can have here. But when we look at the long-range needs of northerners and we look at the desire for quality health services and education...
I just ran into a mom from Hay River last night who told me that this program has been cut in their school and that program has been cut. With these vast resources, we have to have a way of translating that into the best quality of services, programs and support for our residents as we can possibly acquire. There is no reason for there to be such a contract in the picture of a region so rich in resources and people so suffering without ability to access what they need to make their life a quality life.
So this is sometimes the conflict that we are faced with. We want development, we want jobs, we want business opportunities, but we can't afford a bad deal for the long haul. I have no sense of how realistic our expectations are in terms of Ottawa. I wish we had something. We have thrown things out here today, a comment here or there from the Prime Minister. Myself, personally, -- and I have been very close to the politics in the North for many, many years -- I still don't see anything I can really hang my hat on that gives me confidence that we are being heard and that our aspirations and what's duly owed to us is going to be forthcoming.
I wish we had that and I hope Ottawa is listening to this discussion today and I don't think we are being unrealistic. I don't think we are being greedy. We know the population is going to grow. We know that resource development is going to continue to grow and in those years and decades to come, we have to make sure that we have a deal that will provide sufficient resources, financial resources to this territory to allow us to live in the style to which we should live, given the fact that we have these resources. Sometimes we get frustrated and we say let's join Alberta or let's build a fence at the border or let's put up a roadblock. That's just because we are desperate. We desperately need Ottawa's attention on this file. The diamond mines are operating and being constructed and those resources are going to flow.
Albeit, Canada has been supporting the North for a long time. When you do look at some of the infrastructure and some of the things we have enjoyed here over the years, we have to be realistic and say it is a lot better than what you see in a lot of rural, northern, remote areas in other parts of Canada. I think the federal government has been supportive, but we are kind of at a crossroads here right now where resource development is growing to the magnitude that if we do not have a resource revenue sharing deal that is good for northerners and will carry us for many years ahead, we are starting to get nervous about it. That's where we find ourselves. That's where we are in time. I suppose if there was no diamond mines and there was no promise of a Mackenzie gas pipeline and all these things, maybe this wouldn't be such a pressing subject for us.
In the past, we had the Northern Accord which required unanimous support or they didn't get it. Then we had Ministers of Indian Affairs who came along and said we get a majority of aboriginal governments and territorial government to agree to a plan, that's good enough. Well, we didn't achieve a majority under those Ministers. Now we have a government that is looking at the resources here in the North and they are saying -- at least this is what I heard Mr. Prentice say and I think he said it here in the North -- if we can't make up our minds, if we can't come to an agreement, they will make the decision for us. I don't like that. I think we have got to stand up, be counted, take a position and hopefully that we will be listened to.
We don't want to discourage or discredit in any way the aspirations of the different groups that potentially will be affected by resource development. The Northwest Territories and the North in general is really the last place in Canada where the federal government can do right by northerners and it's a fact. Half of our people in the Northwest Territories are aboriginal people. They are people who have a special right to which the government owes a special duty. We have not seen the conclusion of all of those discussions and negotiations with respect to those obligations, but you only have to look in southern Canada to see how people who had treaties with the federal government and how they were marginalized and how they were put onto tracks of land. I don't need to give anybody a history lesson here, but the Northwest Territories is one place where the federal government has an opportunity to do right by aboriginal people in terms of the issues that need to be settled and the deals that still need to be made that is to their benefit.
It's a wonderful opportunity ahead of us, but it can be lost. We have an opportunity to seize and it can be lost if we cannot come together here in the North and respect and recognize what northerners want. We have an obligation to speak about that in this House and that's what we have done today. I feel encouraged by that. I encourage our leadership on the other side of the House to press on, make it the priority that we have talked about here today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause