Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would want to add a little story to my Member’s statement. Mr. Speaker, some time ago, the elders were telling stories on the Norman Wells oilfield. Some of the elders claim that, when they passed through, they picked up the oil off the ground, put it in a lard pail and brought it to Tulita. When they got to Tulita, it was given to some of the Hudson Bay and the government people that took it down. Later on, some of the people came up from the south to claim the Norman Wells oilfield. That was about 89 or 90 years ago.
Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories has been noted over many studies of the vast amount of resources that are waiting to be capped. It has been said over time that the Northwest Territories could be true partners in Canada, if only we were taken seriously by the federal government.
Seriously, Mr. Speaker, the NWT has billions of resources that could be redistributed amongst the people of the Northwest Territories. For example, if the highway was built from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, we could contribute to the national gross domestic product and billions, almost $58 million alone just in terms of the potential for oil and gas exploration. Just the highway itself on the royalties and the taxes, I understand there could be about $13.5 billion. If we could build a highway, that will be thousands and thousands of jobs just for the Northwest Territories and also have a little bit of room for people from the south to come up and work on our highway.
Mr. Speaker, this Mackenzie Valley Highway would open many resources in the Sahtu and other
regions in the Northwest Territories. The federal government could either win or lose depending on their next move in terms of supporting the Mackenzie Valley Highway.
Mr. Speaker, Northrock in March 2006 announced the largest oil and gas discovery in the last decade. The well is suspected to produce 100 times the volume of the average well in northern Alberta. That is near Tulita.
Mr. Speaker, the lard pail that I talked about the elders were saying when they shipped the lard pail out, the people have yet to return that lard pail to the people in Tulita. Mr. Speaker, if we build this road, hopefully that lard pail will come back on it.