Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of caribou, this issue about the Bathurst herd is a very tough issue. I heard from people in Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution. I recognize that the inability for them to go in and harvest within the Wekeezhii area has had a really significant impact. However, what impacts them is the right to do so. You have to balance, I guess, an issue of rights and whether or not that is going to be fought in this type

of arena, or an issue of declining herd that, according to science, tell us is a potential for extinction.

The way I view this is there is a need for consultation. I think there is a need for consultation of all aboriginal persons that are impacted by hunting if it is one person that comes down from the Beaufort-Delta and chooses to hunt this herd, then the fact that they are moving their rights to go into that area and hunt it has some impact.

I agree with the motion that a consultation should occur. I have had an opportunity to speak to some of the people that have been involved in the decision; some of the Tlicho citizens. The Tlicho citizens, it appears to me, have a mixed reaction to the ban. The reaction seems to be that the Tlicho people are saying we want to go get caribou for food. Some are saying this is the Minister within the GNWT that is trampling on their rights of aboriginal people to be able to harvest food for themselves which, because the barren-ground caribou are not endangered, therefore, at this point they are not endangered. That is because we don’t have our own legislation. At this point, they are not endangered. So there is an issue of their rights and the hunting. Also, the Tlicho people are actually saying this is our area. This is what we choose to do. We worked with the Minister of ENR to impose a ban in this area because we want to protect the caribou. That camp is saying that if we continue to hunt and harvest the caribou, then the caribou will be extinct and then this won’t be a topic of discussion in the future because there will be no caribou.

I believe that there should be a consultation. I believe that is what this motion indicates, that there is a need for consultation with all the stakeholders and not just people that are opposed to the ban but also for the people who are seeing this as a way to conserve the caribou herd. I support this motion for the fact that it is asking the GNWT, Environment and Natural Resources, to go back and sit down with aboriginal people and come up with a solution that allows maybe some subsistence hunting that is necessary. I don’t know how that is going to all roll out, because I don’t know how you make a case to do subsistence hunting. For example, I am a Treaty Indian. I wouldn’t be allowed to hunt under a subsistence law, I suppose, because I could always go to the store and buy meat. However, that discussion has to occur. I guess this motion is one way of giving the government and the aboriginal people who are impacted by this decision an opportunity to sit down and move to the next level and make a decision on whether or not there is going to be some hunting in the Wekeezhii area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.