Mahsi, Madam Chair. I represent the majority Aboriginal Dene people in my riding of Deh Cho, and I've also got two treaty groups that are at the table, the K'atlodeeche First Nations out of Hay River and also the Dehcho First Nations, which represents 10 Aboriginal Dene groups and two Metis groups, also. I think their struggles have been ongoing for quite some time, as every other claimant group. It's good to see that there are three that have reached self-government and are their own government bodies. I think that's what we're all aspiring to, to get to those points. I know there are difficulties in moving forward on many fronts, but I believe there is progress there, at the same time.
What I'm mostly encouraged about is that, you know, there are a couple of items within the mandate that we have selected that are at the top five that we're looking at, and I'm just kind of concerned that the Regular Members' voices are not really being heard when we want to move forward because, as I mentioned, when I first came to this House, the Assembly, I had a vision. That vision is the GNWT, the government of the day, works and walks hand in hand with all the Dene people of the Northwest Territories, as we are a majority population. All the groups there in the Northwest Territories, that we walk hand in hand to Ottawa and say, "Hey, this is what we have. We're working together. We recognize there is an Aboriginal Dene territory, and we're working with them, and here is what we want you to do," you know, to say that to the federal government, and to put meaning into wanting to settle and implement all the self-government agreements and treaty negotiations. You know, that's what we would really like to see, and we want to see it.
I said I wanted to see a committee at the beginning so that we can direct the negotiations team and not have it work the other way around. That's kind of what I saw, so we can say, "Hey, relax your policy or your demands a little bit and work with the Aboriginal groups." You know, dealing with subsurface rights, let's have a serious talk about this so that we can move forward. It's good for economic prosperity when we look at that picture in that sense. Maybe we have to look at, you know, we're talking about the UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Maybe we should put that first. Let's pass that. I don't believe that's going to cost us any money at all. What it's going to cost, I guess, is probably to look at our legislation and policies and making some changes in there. Those are the two biggest ones that I just wanted to mention at this point here. I probably have more questions as we go along. I thank the Chair for allowing me to speak. Mahsi.