Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I feel I have to speak on the bill again. I have spent a lot of time talking about Bill 18, a bill that is going to do nothing more than consolidate a portion of the Weledeh riding to the Tu Nedhe riding, combine the two ridings together. I don’t know if the small community riding is now joined in with the Yellowknife riding or if they’re taking the traditional riding of Yellowknife out and joining it with a small community riding outside of Yellowknife.

I would like to read a bit of what the elders parliamentarian Ms. Violet Beaulieu has presented during the Elders Parliament. I felt that what she said in here was something that the people truly felt in Tu Nedhe. I would also like to speak on the fact that the only people who were affected by this bill were the people of YK Dene and the people of Tu Nedhe being in Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e.

After all the review, all the travel, all the meetings across the Northwest Territories by the Electoral Boundaries Commission, the only change was to consolidate two ridings, two small ridings at the opposition of both and all of those people in those ridings.

In those ridings, when the Electoral Boundaries Commission travelled to those ridings, they came out and clearly indicated that they were in opposition. Obviously, the report indicates that other ridings were not in opposition of this specific recommendation because they were not affected.

Mr. Speaker, this is about amending the electoral districts, and what the elder had read was something that I felt was very good, so I’m going to go over that again.

There’s a bill before the Legislative Assembly to join Tu Nedhe to be part of the riding of Weledeh, joining the YK Dene into a new riding. The residents of Tu Nedhe do not support the change for several reasons. The residents of Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e speak a different language than the group in YK Dene. By combining the two Aboriginal groups, we will lose a culture and a language of one of the groups. So there is no possibility that the Wiilideh language and the Chipewyan language could be represented in this House in one riding ever into the future. There is very little possibility that any other riding would elect somebody that was Chipewyan or somebody that spoke the Wiilideh language. There’s only one MLA coming out of that riding; therefore, the only other possibility was for somebody to be trilingual in order to speak both of those languages, which I guess is a possibility, but a difficult task.

The elder goes on to say, as a long-term resident of Fort Resolution, I feel our concerns on poverty and lack of jobs in small communities, small, remote communities are different than the concerns of people living right next door to the capital city in the Northwest Territories. We have very different issues from people living in Yellowknife.

The rate of employment in Yellowknife is high and very low in small communities of Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e. In our small, remote communities, we have social and economic issues, things like lack of good housing, high rates of addictions, low education levels that must be dealt with by our MLA on a regular basis.

The present riding of Tu Nedhe has the second largest geographical riding in the Northwest Territories of all ridings. Some of the elders say our land and our people cannot be separated. This is still our ancestral homeland. What we do is collective. If we have a consensus government, then this Assembly must accommodate our unique, indigenous structures. There are good examples all over the world where colonizers have left us with a model to follow. We have had our own riding for 40 years and we must continue to keep our own riding. We have the right to own a seat in the Legislative Assembly and a right to have our language spoken in this Assembly.

I know there are rules that govern how many people in the riding and what size the average riding should be, but we live in a very remote part of the country and deal with isolation and challenges of travelling long distances between communities.

There are many areas in Canada – Nunavut, Yukon, Labrador, Prince Edward Island – where people are considered to be overrepresented. There are special circumstances where overrepresentation is necessary, and I think to protect the culture and language of the Tu Nedhe people, it is necessary to keep the riding as is.

Finally, constitutionally the government must consult and accommodate our people and ask the government to respect our wishes under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, this was made by the elder parliamentarians here this spring, somebody who represented a respected elder who was here to represent the people of Tu Nedhe.

In addition, I feel that this Assembly should recognize the people of Weledeh and have a riding that is not dominated by the people of Weledeh, so the people of Weledeh also have a voice in the Assembly. As it stands, this Assembly is contemplating combining two Aboriginal groups, like I said, and essentially eliminating the Weledeh people from having a seat here in Yellowknife.

I supported the solution that gave one seat to Yellowknife, which is off the table and one seat to the people of the Tlicho, the people of Monfwi. They needed more representation and we’re asking for people at this Assembly to not accept this bill and go back to the status quo. The only change that this bill makes, is a change that is opposed by all people, the only people that are affected, I cannot see why this Assembly would agree to make that change. It doesn’t impact anyone else. It impacts only one area, and all people in that area are opposed to it, everyone. Everyone I spoke to in YK Dene, amongst the people at Detah, the people in Ndilo, the people in Lutselk’e and the people in Fort Resolution are all opposed to it. They do not think this is a good idea. They want to have representation in the House. We have several official languages which leaves our official languages in the Northwest Territories, and how this Assembly could contemplate eliminating the possibility of having one of those official languages in the House is beyond me. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.