Thank you, Madam Chair. This Wildlife Act is a very contentious piece of legislation even leading up to this. When you look at the Wildlife Act, it’s been over 30 years of any type of very significant changes to it, since ’78-79. When you look at the history of Aboriginal rights and title, even with the Wildlife Act in place since ’78-79, it certainly did not recognize Aboriginal rights or titles, or even have a constitution in place that gives First Nation people this recognition.

Certainly the courts have ruled on significant cases of law that give credence to Aboriginal rights or Aboriginal titles to land and to animals and to practise their ceremonies as a people, a First Nations people of Canada. Again, the Wildlife Act that we’re making changes to today, the old Wildlife Act doesn’t recognize this and that is not right. Things have changed and the courts have ruled on some of these changes that people are bringing forward, such as the First Nations people. Even in the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit, the Gwich’in, the Sahtu and the Tlicho have settled their land claims and have structured decision-making bodies such as our renewable resource boards to advance further our wildlife management than we have in the act right now. So this act is recognizing that and catching up. We’re catching up to what’s already out there, settled and dealt with.

The Wildlife Act certainly has a lot to do with the attitudinal changes that come with it. That is something that needs to happen.

In the Charter of Rights and Freedoms under Section 25 – and I always stated that – there is a clause in the Charter that protects the Aboriginal people as a nation of people that gives them that special shield. This was negotiated at the provincial and federal level by Aboriginal organizations. It’s in the Charter that gives them that shield, to recognize that as First Nations of Canada – and the courts have ruled on it significantly in some of the court cases – Aboriginal people have special rights, and Section 25 protects those special rights. That says you can’t treat everybody the same and you can’t use that, because that shield is there to protect that, the special rights of Aboriginal people being the first peoples in Canada. That’s why it’s there, and that shield protects them from that type of discussion, and the land claims also speak to that.

I know when I went home to the Sahtu, even the residency is too short for some people. One year is too short. They wanted three to five years. Once you’re here for one year, a teacher or an RCMP or the Northern Store workers or any non-Aboriginal people coming into their community, they only need to stay a year and then after that they can go hunt, providing they pass certain standards and qualifications for them to hunt. But that’s too fast. That’s too fast for the old people. They’re saying that’s too short for us.

I also understand there has to be compromise in how we help each other out. There are constitutional rights that need to be recognized and protected in the Wildlife Act. We’re also seeing a change of lifestyles amongst our people in our communities.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, we in the small communities were primarily people who lived off the land more strongly than today. Even in the ‘50s, people were slow in coming out of the mountains and the bush to live in communities. Government had a policy to encourage people to go live in the small communities, go to the schools, go live in the government houses in the ‘70s. That was a strong encouragement to get us off the land and to go that way. We were strong out there. But the change of lifestyle today is different. We still have that yearning to go in the bush in the fall time and for the spring hunt. We also have a respect that if my friend next to me, if they are Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal and I know that they need food to feed their family, then we’ll help them. That’s in small communities. We really don’t distinguish, well, you’re non-Aboriginal so you can’t come with us. That’s not right. We would help them just as much as that person would help us. And that’s what we’re coming to. I think we’ve pushed this Wildlife Act as far as we can.

We do have an issue if someone comes to our small communities and they think they have rights right away because they’re there for a year, two

years or three years. That’s too short. They’re not staying with us very long. Pretty soon they’re leaving. Even five years is a short time and then they take off and they don’t come around. That’s pretty hard for some people to accept that a teacher can be there for three years and then they’re gone. We don’t see them again. We don’t see them back in our community or our region. They take off. So these rights are very personal and very significant with wildlife. We understand that long-term Northerners who stay in our communities and our region that raise their families, that’s different. We help many people in those situations. There’s also a point where this Wildlife Act now is catching up to our land claims settlements. These land claims settlements are far in advance of what we have today. So I do have some concerns with the Wildlife Act. I do have some issues such as the residency clause. It’s way, way, way too short. I do recognize that this could be perceived as unjust; however, I will be going through it and making my decisions as we go through it. Thank you, Madam Chair.