Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, I stand here 100 percent behind this motion, behind the intent, behind the spirit and, hopefully, the force of it.

An aspect of the world water management in North America, Mr. Speaker, is the way water has been commodified. It is now something that is very much in the realm of the world of commercialization. Mr. Speaker, at least one Member this afternoon has already talked about bottled water and how strange it is that we would forsake the fantastic water that we have in virtually all of our communities, Mr. Speaker, for something that comes out of a plastic receptacle.

Mr. Speaker, former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed is one of the visionaries on this aspect of water management. He has foreseen the way, not just industrialization, but commercialization of water at the consumer level, at the household level, is very much part of what is happening with water these days. I don't know whether he can lay claim to it, but somebody out there has said that water is the world's next oil. That is very much the case.

In fact, the value that is put on it, people like Mr. Lougheed say is that water will become more valuable than oil. We can get along without a lot of things that oil provides. We can find substitutes for it, but, Mr. Speaker, there is no substitute at the end of the day for water.

It's interesting to look at the values. Today you can go just about anywhere here in Yellowknife. One survey that we took tells us that we can buy a litre of bottled water for $1.29. But I can go to the gas pump out at the Co-op, Mr. Speaker, and I could buy a litre of gasoline for less, for $1.09. What does that tell us about the value we are putting on water, at least in this rather weird and perverse way of being able to buy the stuff out of the bottle instead of trusting what we can get out of the tap, at least here in the Northwest Territories?

Mr. Speaker, 9 percent of the world's fresh water is in our jurisdiction. My colleague Ms. Lee has already asked about jurisdiction -- Mrs. Groenewegen -- and I talked about it in my Member's statement earlier today. The Minister, Mr. McLeod -- and I accept his candour -- wasn't really able to say where are the deciding or the defining lines and jurisdiction in the environment between us and DIAND. It's one of those murky questions that's out there. We had better get on that, Mr. Speaker. We had better get on that and figure that out really quickly if we are going to know where we can go and where we need to push the case. Mr. Speaker, 10 percent of the world's fresh water is here in the Northwest Territories. That's one out of every 10 litres here in the NWT. Yet our population base is so small that for every 150,000 people in the world, there is one of us. So if we look at it in that ratio, one to 10 versus one to 150,000, it gives me a sense of just how much responsibility we have as the stewards of this amazing resource to make sure that we do not just do our best but that we excel, we exceed, we go beyond what we just need to look after it for ourselves and then make sure we show that example for the world.

That also raises, Mr. Speaker, the spectre that if we have this much of the world's fresh water, that there are going to be people very, very interested in whether or not they can have some of it too. We have already talked about the appetite, the insatiable appetite for water resources for northern Alberta to tap its resources. We are also warned

by people like Mr. Lougheed and others who look at resources and commodities on not just a national but international basis and we know that the water we have north of the 49th parallel is going to become more and more attractive to our American neighbours. This is something, Mr. Speaker, that we in this Assembly and I hope our neighbours in the provinces and the federal government are looking at with every intensity, every seriousness, every aggressive action we can bring to the table, Mr. Speaker.

There are some people who would even say agreements that are already in place among provinces may not stand up to a Charter test under the NAFTA agreement. The North American Free Trade Agreement may not protect Canada's waters from the demands of other countries like the United States. I really don't want to think too much about the day when somebody comes and says thanks a lot for the water in Great Slave Lake and the mighty Deh Cho River, Great Bear Lake; we can take it because back in the '80s or '90s, somebody signed a deal that said we could. I don't want to think about that day. I think it's incumbent on all of us to do everything we can to make sure that it never, ever happens. That is where I think we, as legislators, Mr. Speaker, have a solemn and urgent duty on behalf of ourselves and our children to protect these waters that right now we are able to take almost for granted. This is one reason we should stop doing that and never again look at this as a gift that we don't have to worry too much about. It's time to start worrying. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause