Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue here is about our life as people in our region. When you talk about caribou, that's our life. I wonder a lot of people who depend on caribou for their livelihood. This is exactly their life. You know, we have a decline or there's some serious issues as some of the caribou are not as populated in the region as we think they are, then our elders get very concerned. I think that's where I support what Mr. Landry is saying about we have a summit where real stakeholders are the elders who live off the caribou for the earliest time of their life. Us, we're okay; we can go to the stores and that, and once in a while we go hunting.
By the way, Mr. Miltenberger, did I ever tell you about my hunting story? This is what the elders depend on and this is who should be at the summit, are the ones who know about the caribou, who depend on, who grew up on the
caribou. I think they can work cooperatively with these new biologists coming out of universities who have all their high school and technology in terms of how to track the caribou. Well, that's only one method. The other method has to be by the traditional knowledge and I think that's where you've got to have a real good balance of the traditional knowledge and the technology as satellite, collaring the caribou. All the elders don't like that, but you have to talk to them and you have to listen to them to have them explain to you why they don't like the collaring of the caribou. Sometimes we don't take those suggestions or advice too kindly because it just might as well collar them.
So anyhow, I really want to support you on this summit here, having some regional discussions with our stakeholders. I think the other key ingredients here on this one here is we educate our children.
I got excited last year when somewhere you mentioned that there was going to be some cabins along the winter roads for monitoring caribou. I'm not too sure if that come about, but that's real key in terms of having the youth go out there with the wildlife officers and have educating programs with caribou. So I think that's a real key in terms of the education programs and I support what you're doing here, because, as you said, this is the first of many and we're doing this and you have to certainly consult the land owners in the Northwest Territories. There's a couple land owners that need to be consulted. So I look forward to the summit. I look forward to some of the older people, the hunters, I look forward to them being at this summit here. That's their life you're talking about.
So that's really key here. So this is a really serious issue for my people and they depend on this caribou. So I'm just going to make that comment to the Minister and I think he's taking all our comments into consideration for this important issue here. Without caribou, my people said there's not going to be many of us left here. Caribou is their life. So we're talking about the aboriginal people's life here and this is serious. So I really want to say that this is what the elders say when they sit and they talk about caribou. People in Colville Lake, we know this history of Colville Lake people and the caribou and there's a mountain there that if you ever took the time to listen to Colville Lake people, ask them about that mountain and how their people come about. It's from the caribou. Really listen to those old-timers. They're serious here so we can't mess around with this stuff here. My people are depending on this issue here. They're experts in there. I don't know why we're not using those experts in the small communities, Paulatuk, Sachs, Whati, Colville Lake. There's lots of experts sitting there...(inaudible)...so heavily, there's experts sitting right now in the communities wondering what they're going to do with their life and they don't have the paper, but they have a paper in their head. As the elder said, my paper is up here. They ask him for a certificate on First Aid. It's all up here, he says. Because I don't have the paper, they don't hire me. So I think that this is their life that you're talking about. I ask the Minister to have some consideration when you talk to stakeholders, when you talk to people monitoring it, talk to the original people of the land that can also help the biologists. By far we can help the wildlife technicians coming in here and they certainly can help us.
So it's got to be a balance, Mr. Minister, Mr. Roland, on this issue here. So I'm looking forward to a summit, as Mr. Landry said. I'm looking forward to a good summit and I certainly support hearing you're pushing for a good summit, a strong summit for the people. So I just wanted to say that for my people, set my people free. Thank you.