Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the motion, I, too, see that as a gap. As a Member with many small communities and many elders in the communities, having their knowledge valued is something that is of great importance. As well, many of the elders I represent are not wealthy elders. They don't have huge RRSP stockpiles on which to draw upon. Often the only income they have is what they get from the federal government and what they get from the territorial government. Often they are used at meetings for consultation. We bring them to meetings. We pay them a limited amount of money, but that gets added to their income, so it affects their ability to draw on income support programs that we do have, like the fuel subsidy. It's all income tested.

Yet, we are paying how much to the elders and providing them income when we use their services, but the motion speaks about are we really giving them the value. Then you get some pimpled guy from the university and we are paying him $1,000 or $1,200 a day for his advice. It's just not right. The people from the land are experts. So we have to recognize them. Just speaking back to my first point, there must be a way to assist them from not getting clawed back. It's up to Members on this side to point out the gaps and inconsistencies, and it's governments' responsibilities to find or see if there is a way to assist them without getting clawed back or just not count it in their income when we want to assist them with some income support programs that we offer.

I will be voting in favour of this motion, Mr. Speaker. I support it wholeheartedly. It's a motion whose time has come. Mahsi cho.

---Applause