Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. We are all Northerners. As Northerners, it's our very nature to mingle, hug, and shake hands, to be physically close with each other, especially true in our small communities. During this time, we normally had our carnivals. We had our jigging. I could hear the jigging in my head right now. I could hear the drums and people having a good time, but that was all disrupted by COVID. You know what? I believe we are all resilient. We are a resilient bunch, and we can get through this. We got through other scourges. I said in an online address on my social media that the key to getting through this is through patience and discipline, and I stand behind that. I still believe that. We're not through this. This isn't over, and we need to stay the course.
Mr. Speaker, again, I mentioned that we went through the Spanish influenza way back, before World War I. When I left my home community, Deninu Kue, there is still a mass grave marker there. I hope we never have to go through that ever. I want to thank all the medical staff and all the workers, what they need, what they did to protect our people and to make sure everyone got through this without dying.
Our small communities, they took measures to protect themselves, i.e. security checkpoints. I stood behind them. I think that we could have done a little bit more as a government, but right now, this is a process. We are still going through this process. Where we are sitting right now is a perfect example of it, with our masks and our arrows now, our new protocols now because of COVID.
It did bring out some experiences through all this. It made us think, reflect. During this time, as a people, we managed to house our homeless during this pandemic. It made me think about basic universal income that we are giving to people through this. It made me think of how we give Mother Nature a break, some breathing room here, some reduction in greenhouse gases. Those kind of things really, really, brought some things to light, and how we can proceed as a government in the future. I would ask unanimous consent to finish my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I will be brief. In closing, I wanted to say that a lot was disrupted. There were no weddings, or anything like that, and our funerals aren't even the same. My condolences to all those who lost their loved ones, all our elders. Hopefully, when all this is done, we can have a good, proper celebration, a good feast, and pay our respects the right way as a group like we always do, because that's what we do as Northerners. We're going to get through this, and I want to pass the message on to everybody in the North. Marsi cho.