Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to say a few words on this motion here. I thank the honourable Member for Nahendeh for seconding it and Members for allowing me to feed it through the P and P and to bring it to the floor where it is today.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been hearing from different Members and different Ministers on the Sahtu recent oil and gas exploration activity that’s going on up there. Norman Wells is the oldest oil-producing wells in Canada. It started in 1920 or 1921. In 1943 the Canol pipeline was built right from Norman Wells into the Yukon Territory in regard to the war initiatives by supporting the U.S. Army.

We are no strangers to pipeline. In 1980 Enbridge built a pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley to take our resources out. There have been record-breaking sales of leased lands in the Sahtu 11. As the Minister has stated, it’s over $630 million, and two more parcels recently got taken up by Shell Canada in the Fort Good Hope area. That makes it close to $700 million that’s supposed to be committed to be spent in the Sahtu. There’s been encouraging results from reports that we’ve been getting from the oil companies. Income assistance has certainly come down quite considerably in the days and winter months of this oil and gas activity. Then it will come back up again in April.

There’s a new technology happening and the people in the Northwest Territories are finding out it’s called hydraulic fracking. Once this hydraulic fracking issue has been given the green light, there will be ample opportunity for people in the Northwest Territories to benefit from the Sahtu play. The companies from Yellowknife, Hay River, Simpson, Inuvik, Tuk, all over, are going to come to the Sahtu to see how they can benefit. It’s not only people in the Sahtu, but everyone. It’s taking a piece of pie that everyone can work on.

The point that I want to make here is that the play is happening now. It’s going on. The activity is there. This winter over $100 million is being spent in the Sahtu. Over 350 workers are working on seismic, driving, camp catering; you name it, they’re working. We recognize this in the Sahtu and we want to know when is this government, the federal government going to look at it and say there’s encouraging results. We could put in some funding like the Voisey’s Bay model for training people in the Sahtu, training people in the North to look at some of these long-term activities. There’s going to be activities such as the hydraulic fracking. We need to get involved in that. There’s environmental protection like wildlife and monitoring. We need to have proper training in that. We need to put together a comprehensive social, economic strategy. We need to put together a strong – and we do have it already, as a matter of fact – the Sahtu people put together a wellness strategy that came out of funding from the $500 million that was targeted by the federal government. They told us to go to work. What would you do if you had a piece of this $500 million? In the Sahtu, over a period of a number of years, sat down and said this is what we want to do.

We know it’s an issue with us. The Minister of Justice and I have been in contact. We know the number of liquor seizures that have been happening on the winter roads. Nobody carries 50 bottles of mickeys for the pleasure of an evening of drinking. We know there’s stuff happening. The RCMP are happening, they’re doing their job. We’ve got to do our job in being responsible for our region. We know crimes have been increasing because of the activity and because of the unrestricted liquor sales in Norman Wells. The Minister of Justice and I have been talking about the sharp increase in crimes related to alcohol, a sharp increase. We know that people are getting hurt. We know that the government has responded and we want to thank you, from the Sahtu, for responding to the needs. The government put $1.2 million into programs and services. They have heard the people, but we need to do yet a little more. We’re looking for some help in the health and social services and we’d hope that the Minister would have some more discussions with his colleagues to look at some of these issues.

We’ve got to start working with our people. Once these developments happen and production happens, these oil companies are going to want certified people to work; pipefitters, welders, they’re going to want them to be unionized because of liability insurance and safety. So we’ve got to look at how we work with the union, because they’re the ones that are going to be contracted to do this work. The days of shovels and thick wheelbarrows are over. So we’ve got to look at some strong training programs.

Of course, protection of environment, the baseline, the air, the water, the animals. I’ve heard it somewhere and I’ve read it, that if we take care of the land, the land will take care of us. That’s so true. Under the ground we’re standing on there’s rich, rich minerals. I think the Government of the Northwest Territories did an estimate of over 600- some-odd billion dollars of resources that we have. We’re a rich nation, a powerful rich nation and we’ve got to get ourselves ready for that.

The people in the Sahtu want to be wealthy, they want to be prosperous, want to have the opportunities, but like every other region in the North, they also want to save things. We’ve got to work on how we change our thinking. With this motion, hopefully that will start changing our thinking. So this is the direction that we want to be in now so we can prepare for the opportunities that we can be ready for and we can work with the other regions to get their people ready. I have seen people in the Sahtu from the Beaufort-Delta, the Mackenzie Delta, people from Nahendeh, all over. So this motion is to tell this government that if you can set some time aside, help us with the federal government to look at these things that we want to pursue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.