Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I got up this morning at 5:30 to make my coffee, I was pouring the water and was wondering: how safe is this water here in Yellowknife? I thought about that after the coffee was percolating, I drank it and was thinking: how safe is our water in the Sahtu?
Hearing about the fracking issue with oil and gas, who is monitoring our water? I know we have a Sahtu Land and Water Board, we have a Sahtu Land Use Plan, we have a constitutionally protected treaty, called the Sahtu Dene and Metis Land Claim Agreement, we have provisions in there, we have people from the region, from our communities who are on these boards who make these decisions, we have scientists, we have traditional knowledge people about the water. Actually, the water, Mr. Speaker, is very powerful. Powerful, powerful. It is a living entity to our people. It is alive and it is so powerful that it heals itself.
But you know what, Mr. Speaker? A lot of people are saying, how come the water is so low this summer. There were areas that, when we went caribou hunting or moose hunting this fall, there were low waters. Even a good old jet boat couldn’t go around some of the islands, and they only take about two inches of water, because I own one and have driven from Fort Simpson to Fort Good Hope with my son, and believe me, the Mackenzie River is powerful. God’s creation is powerful. So I want to know about who’s monitoring the water, who’s looking after it.
In Great Bear Lake in the early days of the mining, there was 720,000 tonnes of hazardous material dumped into that lake. If you look at Imperial Oil’s water licence for the next 10 years, they’re taking billions of litres out of the Mackenzie River that will run through its plant system. They’ll put billions of litres back into the Mackenzie and it will flow down to Good Hope and further down. Who’s monitoring the quality?
I want to ask the Minister, at the appropriate time, because water is life, there’s no doubt. Ask any of my people how precious it is. You can take a bath and you cook with it and you have your good, fresh coffee in the morning at 5:30. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.