Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, some time ago when I was in Tulita and listening to the elders speak on water and the climate change -- this was about 10 or 15 years ago -- Chief George Kodakin and Chief Paul Wright spoke on the things that were going to come down the valley to affect our people on the Mackenzie River. Chief Kodakin and Paul Wright spoke, just popped into the community hall. They were talking about the prophecies and they were talking about the water being an issue and how the weather was going to change in the future. Not being very interested in politics at that time as I am today with my other Members around this House here, I thought why are these elders talking about climate change and water? It's not going to happen. Paul Wright talked about how the river is going to be dirty and how one day when we put our fishnets in the water, that when we lift them up there's going to be no fish or there's going to be dead fish in them, and it's not going to be very good fish to eat, and how the river system is going change in the Mackenzie River, and Mr. Kodakin talked about how the weather is going to change. That's how the elders talked to us.

Even today, the weather is changing on us. Yet, you know, just hearing it on the radio, my colleague said the Alberta tar sands has conditional approval to go ahead, and how critical it is for us in the Northwest Territories that it's going to have a huge impact on our lifestyle and our

life and the lakes in the Northwest Territories, the Mackenzie River, and we're opting for big development. There's a real fine balance.

Mr. Speaker, the six members on this Mackenzie water basin that we rely on to have clean water in the future and to ensure the integrity of this clean water, to ensure that we can have, that we take for granted, they're coming to meet. We should have, as I heard, a territorial response or a territorial meeting to look at this issue here. It's not only in the South; it's all down the Mackenzie River here. We as northern people, our future generations depend on it.

So again, going back to the elders and to those prophecies, it is coming true. We don't do anything. But we could change it. We certainly can change it for our children, change it for our life, and this government certainly needs to step up to the plate to bat for nice clean water. Thank you.

---Applause