Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I stand here today and I’ll be supporting this motion. I’ve heard throughout my region about the old way of doing things and the old way of doing things was about not having enough enforcement,

not having monitoring in the regions, in the communities and a lot of those old days decisions were about things were missed. Users of the land, the trappers and the hunters and the chiefs that go out there see how the land has been in disrepair. So that’s why they’ve got such a big liability when it comes to liability issues that the feds recognize. I’m really pleased to see that they will continue to try to clean up those lands that they are responsible for. But the whole point was that there wasn’t enough monitoring and enforcement at that time, and we see those effects here today.

Also, Bill C-15 with a super-board is disempowerment for our northern territories, our land claimant groups and those that are negotiating. We want more autonomy over our lands, not less, and this bill does that.

Bill C-15 amalgamates our boards, but I think our government has always said we can do things better, and I’m sure we can. That’s all this motion is asking for. Yes, we can improve on it. I know that we’re getting it and it speaks about amalgamating the boards into a super-board. In all our regions, yes, we’re frustrated with the Bill C-15 hearings, but I think it’s about getting our guaranteed involvement back, guaranteed consultation and guaranteed accommodation for meaningful input. That’s what this motion calls for, is trying to restore some of that action. While, in fact, it asks us to restore it completely, I don’t know if we can go there. I think the key thing is we want enforcement, monitoring, community involvement. Once again, the users of the land feel it’s very shameful every time they are left behind for someone to clean up, and it impacts all governments because we’re the ones that end up paying.

With that, once again, I will be supporting this motion and it begins just by maintaining our regional offices. Thank you very much.