Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Along with my colleague from Inuvik Boot Lake, I want to stand today to recognize the 29th anniversary of the Inuvialuit land claim. The signing of the land claim was a historic moment back in 1984, and I think we owe our gratitude to the people that negotiated, the Committee of Original Peoples Entitlement, or COPE as it was called back in the day. They did a lot of good work in leading up to this.
Since the signing of the agreement, the Inuvialuit have worked hard to play a very important role in the economy, and I think there’s no better example than when you go through the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation office in Inuvik and you see all the folks that are employed along with many of the subsidiary companies that many, many of the people there are employed. It was a good first step to self-sufficiency and it gave us a better ability to control what goes on in the Inuvialuit land.
The Inuvialuit land claim covers thousands of square kilometres. I don’t know what people realize, but what I just learned lately is that much of this, a good portion of this is put aside for conservation, and if there’s any industry or any work to be done on the land, then the Inuvialuit have the deciding factor in whether work is going to happen on there or not, which I think is huge. It’s not going to be decided for us.
They’re also in the process of negotiating a self-government agreement. I was just texted some pictures from up in Inuvik, and it’s wet and it’s snowing up there, but they’re still having a great celebration out on the main road. Nothing dampens the spirits of the people of Inuvik and the Inuvialuit. They’ll dance through any kind of weather.
I would like to pass on my personal congratulations to the Inuvialuit. Like many of the people up in the Beau-Del that are both Inuvialuit and Gwich’in, I think we’re all very proud of our heritage, and we look forward to the good work that these folks are going to be doing in the future, and we look forward to being the beneficiaries of that good work. I think we owe a great deal of gratitude to all the people that came before us, paved the way for much of the Inuvialuit-Gwich’in leadership today.
With that, I want to pass along my personal congratulations. [English translation not provided.]