Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to follow up on Mr. Krutko’s comments. My comments would be around the issue of the caribou and how this has come to the forefront in terms of the various different types of positions put by various people. I’ve always said to go back to the elders because the elders are the ones who were raised on the land, they know the land, they know the animals, and the elders have always told us how to behave on the land with specific animals and which animals have special gifts for the people. I’m not too sure how well that sits in with the non-native people in terms of our relationship with the animals. I talk about this because I ask this government in terms of how seriously have they taken the elders’ views and consideration as to determine how to work with the animals. I say this because when I had a meeting in Colville Lake, the Colville Lake people have a very special relationship with the caribou. I asked the elders about that relationship and they told me their story about how they have that relationship with the animals and they say that the Department of ENR doesn’t understand. The elders have always said, do not put collars on our animals. How is it if they would put collars on themselves and see how they feel? The animals are special, they said. Do not put collars on caribou. Still, they don’t listen. Why would the elders tell us this? If they did tell us, how come ENR did not listen when our elders spoke about this important thing? That’s what I want to talk about.
Elders grew up on the land. They know the land. Why haven’t we put enough weight in terms of
seeking out their advice and guidance? It’s just like we don’t care for them. We don’t want to listen to them. Only at specific times that we want to use them. That is not right. The area that we talked about, there are three major mines happening there. There has to be an impact with all the blasting of the rock. You fly over that area and you’ll see the amount of work that’s been on that land. You’ll see the amount of activity that’s happening. The blasting to dig a hole for diamonds. From my view it seems we’re giving more weight to this economy, which serves a lot of people, but we’re forgetting about the real people. And they’ve been here for thousands and thousands of years.
I read a book the other day called “The NWT Ice Pass Study” up in the Mackenzie Mountains where they found scientific evidence of caribou and weapons used 5,000 years ago by our people. That’s rich traditional knowledge that our elders have and our people have. Yet we seem to give more credence and prudence to the scientific evidence. They are just finding out about what we already know. They’re using that very strong evidence against our people.
The Dene Nation, my people, know about consultation. Why do you think we’ve had caribou for the last 5,000 years? They’re still going to be here, they tell me. Has ENR talked to our elders in terms of this issue here?
The Dene Nation, through several meetings, talked about working out an agreement, working on the issues, getting resources. They know this ahead of time. I don’t know why, I’m still trying to understand why the Minister jumped the gun, so to speak, in terms of putting a ban on hunting in this specific area thinking that it will be okay, that he can convince us. He hasn’t yet convinced me why this ban is there. Now he’s in issues dealing with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to work out a solution. And he says maybe a day or two, provided the First Nations people agree to a type of agreement that would be satisfactory. I hope there is a deal that will allow the people to harvest like they have done for thousands of years. Teach us about caribou.
This is totally, totally wrong in terms of how we go about building a relationship with our First Nations people. We hear different stories, we read in the press, they print different stories. We hear on the radio. The Minister tells us different things. Our leadership tells us different things. We’re doing things differently that create a lot of hardship amongst ourselves. I spoke to one leader in Tulita. I just asked about how it sounds on the radio. He said if we continue this way whoever wins is going to create a lot of hardship for us. This is not about nation-building trust in terms of nation to nation. We have two governments, many governments, trying
to do what’s good for the Northwest Territories, our land, Denendeh.
Mr. Speaker, even the old document of the Order-in-Council of 1960, I want to challenge the validity of it. That’s old information. It shouldn’t be used. The Government of Canada itself needs to come into play here. How do we know if the Bathurst herd is becoming endangered. There’s Bluenose-East, Bluenose-West caribou coming into this zone. What happens when this herd comes outside of the zone? Is there strong evidence that this is Bathurst caribou? Do we know if it’s the Bluenose-East or West, Ahiak? I’m not too sure.
Mr. Speaker, when you have this type of direction given by the department on a nation of people, it brings up lots of feelings for people. Mr. Krutko talked about it earlier, the first time aboriginal people get the right to vote in this wonderful world we call Canada. Prior to that, there were laws put for people like myself that we call Dene or Metis. There were laws for us that the Government of Canada will take care of us. There were laws to not organize ourselves in a political manner, to outlaw certain ceremonial events and activities. The biggest issue that we had was there was a law for educating children to assimilate them. They call it cultural genocide. Many of my people have experienced it. It was torture when they took us away and put us in these residential schools. That’s the brunt of things. Now we come back and this thing about the ban and about aboriginal rights and treaty rights, it just resonates a lot, a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of angry feelings.
Today I have not yet been convinced by this government, this Minister that this is what needed to happen. I have trust in my people. I have trust in my elders. I have faith in my culture that my grandfather and his grandfather for thousands of years have managed our wildlife. I believe we can do it today. We don’t need this type of process, this type of consultation. I feel that if we don’t resolve this, that we’re going to have a hard time getting the support of the aboriginal people on certain issues that are very important to us as the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Krutko talked about outfitters. There are about 10 outfitters in that zone and about four mines. That’s a lot of caribou to look at when you look at 10 outfitters for the number of tags that have been issued.
Mr. Speaker, this issue has significant consequences and I think aboriginal people across Canada are paying close attention to this issue here. I think the territorial government needs to be paying closer attention as to how do we build relationships with our peoples in our communities. Caribou is our life. It’s in our blood. Even my son wrote something this morning about caribou as his school work. They’re teaching that at Mildred Hall
School, Dene Kede, about the animals. So it’s important.
I speak for my people, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe, as I said before when my grandfather signed a treaty in 1921, we would come to this type of issue. He’s too good of a man to let this kind of issue, something that we have to fight for as aboriginal people. I want to say to the Minister, I sincerely hope that he does come to a resolution with the YK Dene on a larger picture to how do we resolve this type of issue that’s taking up so much of our time. It’s valuable time, good time that we need to know where issues stand in the Northwest Territories today in regard to hunting caribou, rights, industrial development, who takes precedence in terms of dealing with this.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say that people in the Sahtu who I spoke to, my grand chief, have given me the right to support our people in the Yellowknife, Ndilo and Dettah area in terms of this issue here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.