Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my Member's statement is on the contribution and the wellness of our elders in the Northwest Territories. I would like to ask the Member responsible for Seniors, later on in the House here, in terms of how do we take care of our elders. Our elders are our guiding post for us young leaders here. From time to time, we go to them to seek advice on such issues as caribou, climate change, the water, the environment, even the way of life that we live today. Our elders are the ones that provide us this strong direction in life.
Over the last couple of months, we have lost a lot of elders in our region. We have lost elders in other regions, also. Mr. Speaker, the role of our life today has changed quite considerably from our parents and our grandparents. As young children growing up in our communities, we were also told to go to see our elders and ask for direction and sit with them. This one time that my mother and I were driving to Fort Good Hope on the winter road, my mother told me a story of an elder when she was young; she was 14 years old or so. This elder always told her to come and sit down and she could put her head on her lap, and she would sort of clean her hair. My mother said, Granny, how come you always want me to do this, because you know you don't have dirty hair? Why are you making me do this? My mom wanted to go outside and play with the other children, but Granny always said to do this, so she did that. One day she asked Granny why she always had her do this, and Granny said because in our way we dream for you, we dream a long life for you, we give you gifts, spend time with us. So one of the values the elders have passed on to us that these are the type of values and beliefs that we live. However, it seems that sometimes that we're so busy in our days that we forget to use elders like this in terms of important issues such as the caribou, climate change, the water. They give us very wonderful insights to our decisions, so I want to say that we recognize the elders and people that we use in our community, to treasure them and to pay respect to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause