Thank you, Madam Chair. I also want to make a couple comments. We got to keep remembering that education is a treaty right. Based on the treaties that was made in 1900, and Treaty 8, my great great grandfather's the one that signed the treaty in Fort Resolution. And Treaty 8 -- Treaty 11 was made in 1921 up and down the valley. And when the treaty was made, it was made with the Crown. And the Government of Canada was supposed to uphold those treaties. That's why we got a Governor General, and here we have a Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. When we do an oath to office here, it says that we're supposed to recognize and respect the treaties that are made. And what's going on now is that the way the Government of Canada is managing how they're going to deal with Aboriginal people here in Canada are done so through land claims and self-government agreements. And not everybody signed onto the agreements as well; there's still ongoing agreements that are being negotiated. But right now as it is, the Government of Canada has agreement with the Government of the Northwest Territories that was created in 1967. And a lot of the Aboriginal people still don't recognize this government as their government. It's still recognized as a territorial council, Territorial Act under Indian and Northern Affairs.

The thing is that what's happening now is that we have -- now that we got some settled claims, a lot of these governments are now -- are really frustrated because they want to enhance the education at the community level, build new schools -- I've been advocating to get a new school in Dettah. And the dates on those schools that I seen in some of the material I was reading before are saying that that school is probably 1987 or even '88. But that's not right. You know, it goes back to probably even earlier, to 1978, when they were trailers. And, again, you know, it's getting to the point now where the Indigenous governments are actually wanting to do a letter to the Governor General themselves and say hey look, we need a new school. We can't continue to go after the territorial government for a school because they're not delivering, and they're not honouring and respecting those treaties but yet 75 cents on the dollar is grants and contributions that comes from the Government of Canada.

So I think it's something that we really need to take a look at as a government, is that, you know, we got to start working -- start working together, start building relationships, and we need to start building trust. But a part of this committee, we got a letter from the N'dilo DEA expressing their issues and concerns. There's a lot of DEAs up and down the Valley but we all have to fall under the Education Act. But that Act also is competing with our treaties, and that needs to be recognized and -- because it's a -- our treaties are in the Canadian Constitution on section 35 (1) and (2). And the Territorial Council is -- you know, they've -- basically, in theory maybe we're agents of the Government of Canada. We're, in theory, meaning the Crown, we're doing the Crown work but we're not upholding those treaties.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's getting to the point now where -- and I mentioned earlier that the Indigenous governments are now -- are concluding their claims. Some are not there yet. But they're really frustrated because, you know, they want to go directly to Canada now and start getting that money that they give to the territorial government to be diverted to them so they could provide their own education, maybe create their own Education Act, etcetera.

But anyway, Madam Chair, I just want to make a note of this because I want to continue to emphasize that education is a treaty right. And I want to make sure that this government continues to respect that because we have an oath. It's in the Canadian Constitution. We can't change it; it's there. And going forward, we need to think about doing business different now. And that's why I'm -- sometimes I wonder now maybe we need to start having those discussions about how we're going to move forward and coexist down the line.

Whenever I sit here and I see committees come in front of this desk here and asking for all these monies for these departments, it's really frustrating because when I sit here and I look at it, no problem but yet whenever the communities want something, it's different. So I just want to just make a note of that because to me, again, I want to emphasize we do have a treaty. It's alive and well. Thank you, Madam Chair.