Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. (English not provided)

Mr. Speaker, I, too, fully support this motion that is in front of us today on the right to water. You know, we talk about the right to access water, lakes and rivers. Once it's all contaminated from industries, construction and whatnot, the activity that is happening in our backyard and God knows how many will come forward down the road, a decision is always being made from the feds onto us to say you guys have to accept it.

But one cannot hunt or trap in the impacted areas. We have always heard over the years from the elders, protect your land, protect your wildlife and protect water especially. We canoe down towards the Lac de Gras area, the Tlicho areas, towards the Sahtu and Gwich'in areas. Our ancestors have travelled on their journeys throughout the regions. We call it...(English not provided)...This means all those old birchbark canoes that were made traditionally by hand with spruce gum to patch it together.

Over the years, people have not feared drinking water from the lake until this day. At the same time, mining is happening in our backyard. (English not provided)...is the uranium mine back in the early '40s. That is in our backyard. People are afraid to go into that area. They are afraid to drink water, but the canoe journeys are along that area, whether it be Whati or Gameti. Whenever we cross the path, everybody is thinking that is contaminated; don't go near that area.

So when we talk about access to water, that's our precious water that we must protect. We sit around the table here as government Members. We must think of that as well when we are dealing with our livelihood. I call it our livelihood because that's our passage of water and we know for a fact that international, nationally, Canada-wide, people are desperate for clear, fresh clean water and we do have that in the North here. We have to protect it.

As I indicated, there has been a canoe journey for hundreds of years in our region going to different regions as well. This year, we are going to have a big assembly in Behchoko where our three outlying communities will be journeying with canoes again, a week-long journey. Along the way, we will certainly be drinking water, making tea, coffee and whatnot. We are hoping that...I shouldn't say hope, but this will be a direction where we will continue the journey. We will continue to drink fresh water from the lake.

When the industries or commercial activities come into play, we should be given the first priority to say this is our water and we have to protect our water. As Mr. Miltenberger indicated, a commodity. We have to keep in mind that water is the first priority. It's not only us that live off of it; animals in the wild do too.

We have to protect that and I am glad this motion was brought forward. Again, I support this motion. Mahsi.

---Applause