I notice that with the CANOL Trail, I know the Minister and I have had some discussions. Certainly there are millions and millions of potential damage to the heritage trail on CANOL left by the United States government and the United States army. There are contamination issues there that are too huge for this government or the federal government to even look at the possibility of cleanup and transfer of lands. Also, Mr. Chair, there are certain parts of the CANOL Trail that certainly should be developed and looked at. It’s not the whole trail; it’s certain parts that are a chemical hazard waste site. I’ve walked on that trail, on over 170 miles on that trail, and I’m still not glowing at night so I must be okay. I’d like to think that’s a real big issue here and I know that the territorial government is going to work hard on this issue with our people. That’s another issue that needs to be discussed at another time. I think that we need to look at the implementation, keep a close eye on this one here with the Minister and his department, with the government here with the Sahtu beneficiaries.
Mr. Chair, the issue that I’d like to get some...We agreed to disagree on the MOU. Certainly the Minister has stated the government’s position and their interpretation as to the memorandum of understanding. The chapter 12 that I’m making reference to is the economic measures. Mr. Chair, I was the chief negotiator on the Sahtu land claim, the last 14, 15 months of Sahtu land claim settlement, and certainly that wasn’t the spirit and intent of our agreement. In the current legislation or the current policy, maybe that’s what the territorial government is looking at in terms of this certain clause. This clause here we discussed many times over with our people, with the negotiators. The intent when we signed off, it was that we were going to speak directly to the benefits of this chapter 12 and we thought we had agreement that the MOUs would be the one that we wanted to go with our people there. I agree to disagree with the Minister’s view on this, this government’s position. That’s not the views of the Sahtu people when they signed off on chapter 12. That’s where we have some hiccups on the interpretation and implementation. However, we’re willing to work and see where we could get benefits as stated in our chapter 12 in our agreement. We did not fight to get to the table to only know this is what they think we’re talking about. I was there. Other negotiators
were there and we know what we we’re talking about when we wrote chapter 12. Some of these staff people weren’t even there. They only interpret what they think. I think that’s something that needs to be stated very clearly here. I don’t want to get into it. I’d just like you to know that’s where our differences are going to be held until we know exactly what they were intended to be. Thank you, Mr. Chair.