Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to say that with this motion, hopefully we would legitimatize, I guess, the elders into our education system. We do have them in our schools, yet they’re still struggling in terms of compensating them. They still are nice to have but not really essential. This certification would make it just like a teacher or any other profession in our education system. They will be equal partners. Right now it’s just listen to the elder and if they’re there, they’re there; if not, we’ll do something else. It doesn’t put them on the same level playing field in our education system. This certification would do that. It’s like asking the elders to come to our meetings and say a prayer and then asking them to sit down because we’ve got business to discuss that would not include the elder.
What I’m saying, from our point of view from our small communities, the elders need to take their rightful place in our education system. They need to be in their rightful place in our community. We need to lift them up to a place where they once stood, with high esteem, in our community. Over the years we have put them through a rough system. We have done it ourselves. This motion is one step to move them to their rightful place in our society. They bring that knowledge of truth.
I read in an article in the Calgary Herald the other day that Imperial Oil was discovered by a geologist, Ted Link. I was reading that and that’s what’s printed. I said, oh, my God, do they not know the real truth about the Norman Wells oilfield and the Aboriginal people and the elders that knew about this oilfield for thousands of years? This is how history is portrayed. That’s what this motion will do, is bring the knowledge and the truth so kids who now are able to read, maybe one of them is going to read the newspaper and that’s what he or she is going to believe. The elders will set the road straight and say no, it is the Aboriginal people, the Northwest Territories and Denedeh that knew about the Norman Wells oilfield right down the whole valley. They knew a lot of things that is in their oral tradition. It’s not written. This is what this will do for them such as raising the young ones. The elders will set it right.
Hopefully this Minister, this government can say yes, we can. We will put the elders in through a certificate program, we will design one and have it ready for the fall of 2011, we would do that. That’s how much we owe it to our elders. And we would fix their compensation.
For the last seven years the Minister knows when he was on this side when we were fighting to have elders in. Now he’s on the other side still. So I’m asking the Minister and this government here to put the certificate program in place like Nunavut. Just do it like them. You can do it. We can do it. It’s a matter of all of us here together say yes, and it’s done.
That’s what I wanted to say with this motion here. Let’s do it for our elders. That’s how much we owe it to them. So I say get our elders into the school. Get the real professionals to start teaching our children. Thank you. I will ask for a recorded vote.