Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to thank the honourable Member for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty, for putting this motion on the floor here. I wanted to support this motion. I am very glad to second it. This motion speaks to the very valued essence of our people and honouring our elders in this manner. It would be equivalent to a PhD professor or someone who has a master's degree in the western concept of education. The elders are the reason why we are here today, Mr. Speaker. It's the elders who guide us in our communities. They may not be in front of our political arenas and they may have been pushed aside over the period of time, but it's really them we receive guidance from.
When I ran as an MLA, it was the elders who guided me in this process. It was them who gave a lot of wisdom to me. Sometimes I take it and sometimes I don't take it. I know what happens when I don't take it. I fall and I hurt pretty badly. It's the elders who have kept me on this path and they will continue to do so and it's about time that we recognize them for the true capacity.
Elders will watch this House and they will watch what kind of support we are going to give them in terms of bringing them up to a status where we look at teachers or anybody who comes into our communities with PhDs and we say they have all the answers, but we don't really give that to our elders. We don't pay them and if we do, we claw them back. It's the system that hurts them. It's something that needs to be corrected.
I certainly hope that this government takes a serious look at how we can bring the elders up to a statue that we were once revving for. Mr. Speaker, I am going to support this motion whole heartedly knowing it's out there, and now it's up to the government to decide what they are going to do with it. It's our grandparents and parents who are the ones we are speaking about. They are the ones we need to consider. This motion is long overdue, as said in the past, and I feel very good about seconding this motion. Thank you.
---Applause