Thank you, Chief.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the forum for making themselves available to the Akaitcho people to express at this particular forum some of the concerns that we have relating to Bill C-15.
Before I begin, I did read, as did many others in the north, the papers in which Mr. Bevington stated that a forum of this nature, to a large degree, has limitations regarding what it can actually persuade governments to consider when we hear concerns, suggestions, and recommendations on matters of this nature. To some degree, in the back of my mind, I ask myself whether I should save my breath to cool my porridge here or whether we are just barking into the wind. What sort of opportunity do we as northerners have here to actually see some beneficial changes possibly coming out of what is being discussed here today? It would be very interesting to see how these things move forward.
Nevertheless, it's a good venue at which to have all the stakeholders and the aboriginal governments gather in a room to have a dialogue. With some degree of interest this morning I heard Mr. McCrank speak, as well as Mr. Pollard, with reference to the work that they undertook to help lead us to this point we are at today.
One of the things that were mentioned was the gap that existed and how to bridge this gap. It became very apparent to me that there really is a lack of proper communication among all the parties. Just before I spoke this morning, you heard the chief speaking his language. There's no interpretation available here. From what I understand, in many venues where these matters were talked about, there wasn't proper translation equipment. People missed the point and people were not allowed to speak. With the technology we have available to us, it behooves me to ask why this sort of thing would be allowed to happen. You can see here today that we don't have interpretation equipment available for our elders who are very interested in seeing what is happening. These elders have been around these processes for the last 50 years. This is their homeland. This is where they reside. This is where their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren are going to continue to live. They want to prosper, be involved, and hear what other people have to say so they can in turn articulate in a proper fashion what they believe are the appropriate measures to be taken on behalf of everyone. That is a bit of a concern I want to express here before I get into my point.