Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the mover and the seconder for raising this issue to this level here. In the Sahtu we’ve been dealing with this for some time. There are some inaccuracies, inconsistencies in the motion in the wording and I just don’t get it. I don’t believe in some of the whereases. There are some concerns that certainly we are talking about in the Sahtu and I want to speak on that today.
I want to hopefully give my interpretation of what’s happening in the Sahtu. Certainly, as we know, everybody has different interpretations.
In 1993 the people of the Sahtu reclaimed some of their land. They were not given this land. They reclaimed what has always been theirs. Under the land claims they own the subsurface rights to all oil, gas and minerals on over 1,800 square kilometres.
I respectfully say it is not this Assembly to infringe on any hard fought negotiation rights that the Sahtu have fought for. People of the Sahtu want to control their destiny. There is strong support in my region for strong, sustainable economic development. Ask any Member in this House who does not support economic development to think clearly and carefully about the signals we’ll be sending if we say we know better than you.
At the same time, we have accomplished devolution of so many aspects of governing from the feds to the GNWT. This government has also accepted – has accepted – the Aboriginal government must have and will have a greater say as to how we govern. That’s called respecting each government. We have fought for that in the Sahtu Land Claim, and any other land claims that have been negotiated have been settled. We have a government-to-government-to-government relationship.
The big picture has many facets and many angles, like an octopus, and I want to say that I rise to speak on the vision of our elders when we put together the land claim package as a young negotiator with a lot of other negotiators and our elders who have driven us, who have sat in meetings and listened to the elders. The late George Kodakin, the late Paul Wright, Alexis Arrowmaker, J.B. Gully. Lots of elders in our region. Fred Andrew and my mom, even my grandmother. There are a lot of elders that we sat and listened. We didn’t talk. We listened to what they were saying and tried to figure out what they were saying to us.
I want to speak about the pathway of economic freedom. We in the Sahtu have been working on
creating such a path for ourselves for many, many years. We know that we have to do this ourselves. People of the Sahtu are strong, and we negotiated a path to economic freedom with the completion of our land claim 20 years ago. We are now starting down that path. No one should be trying to set up roadblocks, because we will knock them down.
Our land claim is part of the Constitution of Canada, as are all modern treaties. Chapter 12 of the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement speaks to how we, the Metis and the Dene of the Sahtu, will be economically self-sufficient. We did not get land. We did not get land given to us in our land claim. We simply negotiated to get our land back. Let us get us to our promised land.
Long before contact, when the Europeans came in to our land, we controlled the land. We were sovereign in our territory. With our land claim we have regained some of our lost sovereignty so we can decide for ourselves.
The 1987 project by the Harvard University said five things. It said three things, actually. For a sovereign nation to be healthy and be successful, they need to have their sovereignty. Our land claim gave us that in 1993. We need to set up institutions. Our land claim gave us institutions and we need to protect and promote our culture. Our land claim, through our agreement, gives us this type of cultural institutions and promotion, but also we realized, later on with the Harvard project, that there are two other things that the nation of people need to have. One is leadership and strategic thinking, and we are working on that today. The Harvard project also said that this does not guarantee success, but it’s more likely to lead a path of success.
When I refer to Sahtu Land Claim, we have set up institutions like the Sahtu Land and Water Board. I was the chief negotiator for our claim when we negotiated for the board. Our elders insisted on the board so that decisions about economic development and strengthening our traditional way of life and about using our resources, using our water and land could be made in our region. It is not for this legislation to infringe on the ability of the board to do its work. We’re in the driver’s seat with the board. They can say yes or no, set the terms and conditions. Let’s leave them alone to do their work.
That board and how it works shows all of our people that we did our job. The elders wanted that board and we achieved that. The board and how it operates serves as a role model for our youth. It shows them that we have a big say in what happens in our region. More specifically, from our land claim, we own the subsurface rights, as I said earlier, to the rights to oil and gas and minerals. No one should think that taking away our rights to
decide what happens on and below our land is going to be acceptable. Again, no one gave us this land. Rather, in true Canadian fashion, we sat at the negotiating table for many years and we regained some aspects of our sovereignty.
I know every Member in this House knows that we must respect the Constitution. We must respect what has been negotiated in these documents that make up the Constitution, including the land claims. We must respect what each other’s land claims allows under the Constitution. We have the responsibility and duty in the Sahtu to develop an economy. We have the jurisdiction in the form of the Sahtu Land and Water Board to make important decisions. We own the oil and gas under some of our lands. We want to develop our economy. This is our pathway to economic freedom.
The people in the Sahtu that have this constitutional right are in a land claim organization representing just over 1,200 people. The entire population of the Sahtu is about 2,600. There is a small minority group that is voicing their opposition, and that will happen. We say to them, go to the land claims. They’re the ones that are making these decisions. We have a right in our land claims that says we will determine our own destiny.
I’ve been told by a reality show that a trapper from the Northwest Territories went to Finland. In Finland he had talked to some people who don’t understand trapping. One of the comments from one of the European people was saying there’s no need for trapping fur any more. That, I thought, was done with when the Greenpeace tried to kill the fur industry in the Northwest Territories. They wanted to have some say over our way of life.
Also, there are many reports that I’ve read that show that the conditions in our small communities, the environment is susceptible to high crime rates, alcoholism, addictions and violence because the violence breeds it. As Mr. Bromley has noted, there are many studies on the impacts and effects, and people are looking at these types of behaviours that are factors that are linked to low income, poverty, unemployment. When you look at the statistics in the Sahtu, we kind of fit some of that picture. We have a high unemployment rate. We have close to 250 people ready to work today. We have close to over 500 who want to work. We have needs there, training opportunities. Maybe this might be a blessing in disguise so that we can look and see how do we get our people ready. We are ready. There are conditions that the Land and Water Board puts on these applications like for pass and protection. Land claims are still clearly stated here where conditions will be put in place so that applications will be monitored very closely.
I guess I want to say that the Norman Wells issue of their licence, I think, who is Maude? Maude should be jumping up and down right now because
Imperial Oil is going to want to release 1.5 billion litres of reusable oil from the Mackenzie River for their operation. They’ve been doing that for years. There has been no evidence of fracking water being released underground. So when you talk about our evidence of our horizontal fracking, that’s what we’ve been saying in Fort Good Hope. The effects of Imperial’s water licence are going down the river, not the hydraulic fracking water. As a matter of fact, it uses less water than to operate a camp.
So I’m having a difficult time again, as to how the motion is reading. I think that we need to get the information out there clearly, and I guess the bottom line for me is respecting the Aboriginal governments and what they negotiated for, and understanding that we did this for ourselves to control our destiny and to have a say in our lives.
A few points before I close. For the last 60 years there have been 175,000 fracked wells drilled in Canada. To date there’s no evidence that there are any significant environmental problems that have risen as a consequence. Also, the head of the U.S. government EPA is on record saying she is not aware of any single event of contaminated groundwater as a consequence of fracking.
While we think that this would be something that is a horizontal fracking issue, it would be an issue, it has been, but let’s face the facts. In the Northwest Territories there have been fracked wells vertically in the ‘70s and ‘80s in the Cameron Hills in the Liard Basin. This is prior to any type of new regulations that we now see. They actually hadn’t had any injection wells on their Type A licence. So I’d like to look at some of this information. I think that if it’s an issue of impacting all the regions, we can say a lot about Giant Mine and the Giant mines in other areas, but we respect the guys who need to look after themselves. Look in your own backyard instead of pointing fingers in ours. Have respect.
So I want to say that I will not be supporting this motion at this time. Thank you.