Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I am very proud and pleased to bring this
motion to the floor of the Legislative Assembly. I am not a harvester, but I am an avid consumer of caribou. I appreciate and have come to embrace just how important this creature, this species is to the North, to what I am proud of about being a northerner, how the caribou have made themselves so much a part of everybody's life living here in the NWT. I enjoy the art and the craft that has emerged from the traditions of the aboriginal people and of other contemporary artisans and people who use the materials and the products that are a gift of the caribou.
The clothing and art that comes from them is something that is renowned around the world as is the skill and craft of the people who make it. It is the essence of the herds around which the survival of aboriginal people, over generations, has been part of their life. It has to continue to be, Mr. Speaker. That is why there is so much concern and I think so much resolve and unanimity demonstrated at that amazing gathering in Inuvik. I had the opportunity to attend it as the MLA for Great Slave. What struck me about that gathering, Mr. Speaker, apart from many others I have attended in my terms here as an MLA, was the resolve and the intensity and the urgency of people to focus on the true question of the survival of the caribou herds and of the way we, as the people who are the cause of so much impact on the caribou herds, the way we also need to look at the way we have been conducting ourselves, the kinds of management, restrictions, enforcement and ideas that we are ready to bring into play.
I have found, Mr. Speaker, compared to many other meetings I have attended, there was an extraordinary resolve to act decisively, to be bold and to do things in a very timely manner, Mr. Speaker.
There were a number of statements that came up throughout the meeting. One of them was keep politics out of caribou management. There is a certain level of politics that has to be accepted in that and that is where we need to look at our responsibility.
As I said in my statement earlier today, Mr. Speaker, the most significant thing that this Assembly can do is to heed the signal that was sent to us from Inuvik, from other recent gatherings, that we are gong to hear later on this week from the other Wekeezhii board, that we have to act boldly, we have to act in a very timely fashion and that we should not be shy. We should not hold back from taking strong and potentially even excessive steps, Mr. Speaker, to protect the caribou herds that we know are under threat today.
Mr. Speaker, I contend if the measures that we choose to undertake are potentially excessive or prove to be excessive, and the herds, indeed, rebound, as we all hope they will and indeed the traditional knowledge of the aboriginal people tells us they will, if we put rules out there that are excessive, we can pull back on them. We can open up restrictions we may choose to put on ourselves, but if we do not act strongly and with enough force, will and determination now, it may well be too late. Mr. Speaker, that is the key message that I would like to leave with the Assembly. Now is not the time to be timid. Now is the time to be bold, to take the signals, to take the messages that those 150...I saw a number, 180 harvesters, scientists, regulators, community leaders, that was the message they delivered to us and that is what we must take as our mandate to act. Thank you.
---Applause