Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was giving some thought in terms of my Member's statement today and I was thinking about what the MLA for Hay River, Mrs. Groenewegen, was talking about in terms of how the North could be independent, strong and free in terms of self-sufficiency regarding fish. She was talking about the fish the other day. I thought about this and I talked to my wife about this. Wouldn't it be wonderful to walk into our stores in our small communities and have fish that was from the Northwest Territories, either Great Slave Lake or Great Bear Lake? Lake trout from up in the Beaufort-Delta where there are some wonderful fishing lakes up there. All down the whole Mackenzie River. Have people go out on the land and fish. That's part of their life, being self-reliant, independent and healthy. Teach about the importance of our food here.

How is it today that when we walk into our stores we get fish from outside of the Northwest Territories? We don't even look in our own backyard. I'm just wondering that this government here, in terms of really taking the bull by the horns to shake things up and say this is what we're going to do for the Northwest Territories and for our people. Start looking at how to invest in our own resources, ourselves as people, our communities. The wonderful food that this land has to offer is out there. Caribou, buffalo, moose, even the sheep and all the fish. Even the berries for making jam, making wonderful jam. We have a wealth and it seems that we still need to go out and purchase these things outside of the Northwest Territories.

This is something that we need to think about in terms of how we're going to pass this on to our children, tell them the importance of our own resources in our land, the importance of having fish brought in from our fish lakes. They can get back to the land. People in the South Slave can certainly have some wonderful fish shipped up into the valley and we can do the same as down the Mackenzie Valley here in terms of having food in our local grocery stores by our people. These things should be part of our life here.

I look forward to a day that we can have this discussion as to how we can depend on ourselves.