Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The

Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement came into effect in June of 1994. Although in many ways my constituents celebrate this major achievement, we still have reasons to be angry. We celebrate the fact that much of the land in the area is clearly owned in law by the Dene and the Metis. We celebrate the fact that ours is the first land claim in Canadian history where two aboriginal peoples, the Dene and the Metis, came together in one land claim. However, we get angry about how the Government of Canada and industry don’t get it. They don’t understand our rights. Maybe they just don’t care. They just don’t understand that we are the landowners. They need to respect our rights, plain and simple. Our people have successfully claimed legal ownership to a lot of the land in the Sahtu Settlement Area and our rights cannot be ignored. Yet, too often when industry and the federal government undertake activities on our land, they ignore their duty to consult. They need to consult with our people and the Sahtu leadership on what they are planning to do and they need to give our

people the time to understand the impact of the activities. This is the Law of Canada, as several recent decisions in the Supreme Court of Canada have said. I have suggested that in addition to the duty to consult, there is an obligation to consult. This is a demonstration to respect. It shows respect for our people. It recognizes that we exist. It also acknowledges that we have rights. This moral obligation to consult extends to all the lands of the Sahtu region, whether they are on Sahtu settlement area lands or not. We can only trust the federal government if they demonstrate respect for the Sahtu people as historical landowners. We were on this land long before the Government of Canada came into being, long before any oil and gas companies. Encana did some work on our land this past winter where our rights were ignored. We were not consulted. The federal government seemed to think that no consultation was necessary because the activities were allowed under an old permit, four years old. The leaders of the Sahtu say that this is no way of thinking. If you want to access our right, show us respect and we will understand.