Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to just make a few comments on the Speaker's opening comments with respect to the Legislative Assembly budget. Mr. Chairman, I just want to show my support for any work and the work that the Speaker's office, Clerk's office, and the Board of Management is doing regarding doing the public campaign or communications out to the
communities and travel with the mace and let especially the young kids all over the Territories know about the power that we've been given by them to be here and to represent them and make decisions on their behalf. I think there's always...You know, kids change and they grow fast, and just when...That experience with myself in my riding you need to, you can never visit enough and talk to them enough about important issues of the day and what it is that this House means to our democratic system and what place it has. So I want to applaud the Speaker and his officials for that.
The second issue that I want to speak about is the importance of communicating to our residents about the work we do here. I appreciate that we've had some hiccoughs because of the complications we have had in getting the coverage aired in APTN. But I think the one idea that we should really consider, and in partnership with all northern jurisdictions, is to have our own northern channel. I don't think we can underestimate the power of TV and media for the public to disseminate information. It is an essential part of the democratic system and it is something that we should really focus our energy on in working out a workable arrangement. It is not just to advertise, so to speak, what we do, but TV is a very, very important medium and any government has to rely on that to make...I think it's a connecting agent between a public body like this and the public. With the cooperation and partnership of other northern jurisdictions, I think there is a lot we can do with this. Not only to broadcast the House proceedings of the NWT Legislature, Yukon Legislature and Nunavut Legislature, but on an ongoing basis there are very important press conferences that happen here that could be aired.
Not only that, there are lots of cultural activities that happen in all corners of the Territories that people outside of that specific locality do not have privy and access to. I think one of the privileges that we have as a Member is to be able to travel to different communities and, say, the festivals all over northern communities, for example. There's a very distinct culture and music in Tuktoyaktuk, or Inuvik, or Aklavik. I mean, there are a completely different set of songs and ways of singing in the North that we have the privilege to visit and take part in; Dene hand games and all of the assemblies. There is just so much going on and I think this government has to, even if it costs money, to take an important step of being the agent for serving that need.
I think when CPAC, the national channel, came on, there might have been a question about whether would anybody want to watch committee proceedings or the goings on in the Supreme Court about lawyers appearing before the Supreme Court and arguing on issues that may not be understandable to laypersons. But that's not the way it turned out at all. In fact, CPAC is one of the most watched channels in the country and I think it's because people appreciate getting information from the source and not being filtered by any other middle agents, whether they be, you know, whatever that might be. It's commercial free. The Arctic Winter Games we have going on in Alaska, if we could air those.
I think the opportunities are limitless and I think the CBC being the national broadcasting, they do try to have a component, like absolutely Canadian. But I think we could do something absolutely northern and really use it as a medium to share our common experiences and common culture and also display our distinct, you know, differences in the different regions. I think there is just such potential there and I would encourage the Speaker's office to keep on working with the other partners to see how we can make this accessible and make it possible, but also to try to tap into CRTC or any of the heritage funding or anything, because I don't think we realize the shortcomings that we have in not having the medium that communicates so much that is going on in the North.
Lastly, another thing about it is, people like to see themselves reflected on TV, especially if it's a national media. All the children, and all the culture groups, and the students, and sports groups, and all that should be reflected on our TV. The national media can't do that. We can do that with a northern channel. That's something that I really, really want to encourage our Assembly to take the leadership role on, because the benefits are going to be tenfold, twenty-fold. We are not even aware right now what the positive impact of that might be.
Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I know I probably ran out of my time here. In a jurisdiction where at times it seems like there's so much going on in the NWT, that might be putting pressure to separate us and sort of highlight the more differences than the common culture and common history that we share as a jurisdiction. I think there is a lot more than just broadcasting the Legislative Assembly sessions that we could tap into. There's just so much more good to it and it's an opportunity, and any problem has to be seen as an opportunity. Minor problem we had with APTN, we just have to turn it around and it's an opportunity for us to capitalize on and to move forward. So that's my statement.