Public Speeches

From time to time, I am asked to speak at northern events. Here are some speeches I gave in the last few years.

Notes for a Speech to Kairos on Parliament Hill, 2011

· I am pleased to speak to you on the National Day of Action on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

· {In Slavey} It is good to stand here in Ottawa to speak to you on this important matter.

· Those words were in Slavey – my mother tongue. When I was a child in residential school, I would have been punished for speaking those words.

· All my life I fought to be able to speak for myself and for native people in my own language.

· Now, I’m pleased to say, Aboriginal languages, including Slavey and Inuktitut, are among the official languages of the Northwest Territories.

· In my life, Aboriginal people in the North have gone from being outsiders in their own territory to being leaders in government, in business and in community life. Land claims have been settled and the right to self-government has been asserted and achieved.

· So I can tell you that progress is possible, justice is possible.

· Much has improved for Aboriginal people and yet there is so much left to do. Many Aboriginal communities, especially in southern Canada, suffer from poverty and despair; many do not have the basic services that Canadians take for granted – like clean water and decent schools.

· It is good that the current government apologized to survivors of residential schools. I have personally thanked Prime minister for that and will thank him again now.

· It is good that the government reversed its position on the UN Declaration last November after voting against it in 2007. Better late than never. Though even now they only see it as ‘aspirational’ and having no binding impact on Canada’s laws or policies.

· The new Action plan between the government and the AFN, just announced a few weeks ago, is also a good thing.

· But in the middle of all these good things, we also have the Auditor General reporting that things in most First Nations communities are actually getting worse in the last decade.

· Instead of being cautious about the Declaration, the government should embrace it; they should use it to inspire new solutions, to achieve greater justice; to improve the conditions of Inuit, First Nations and Metis people in the north and across Canada.

· Progress is possible but it is happening much too slowly. What I am here to say to the government, more importantly, what YOU are here to say to the government is: “Hurry up!”

· Mashi Cho

Speech to First Nations Resource Development Conference -- Whitehorse, Yukon, March 2010

The phenomena of business, owning things, being independent, making money, in some cases being wealthy, has always intrigued me especially because I come from a background and culture where business was not the norm. No doubt the traditional life of trapping, hunting and fishing had elements of business, but it isn’t business as we think of it today. It was that fascination with business that led me, as Chair of the Aboriginal Peoples, to undertake a cross-Canada study on Aboriginal economic development.

I'll come back to that in a moment but first I'd like to remind you of how far we've come during my lifetime.

The only business in town when I was growing up in Fort Simpson was the HBC. Other prominent establishments were the churches, the RCMP, the Army Signals and The Indian Agent. Hunting and trapping was the dominant way of life. Making a living off the land and trading your furs for essential equipment and supplies was the way of life. While this way of life was not truly a business, it contained many elements of business – being independent, working as hard as you needed to in order to make a living and getting a financial return for your hard work and organization.

My first lesson about who the HBC was and what constituted a businessman was told to me by my Uncle Ted who used to say “To be a businessman you had to have a heart of steel.” He likened the relationships of the trader and trappers who brought in their furs to a hunter who in the spring would sit by the edge of a creek waiting for a muskrat to come swimming by. Unbeknownst to the muskrat he is shot and skinned. That was the lot of the consumer. It was dog eat dog and survival of the fittest.

When all the furs were examined, measured and shaken, a price was offered. The policy was take it or leave it; no bargaining. The trader always had the upper hand. No slogans such as “satisfaction or your money back” in those days and no Better Business Bureau to check up on unfair dealings.

The next event in my young life in which I experienced what business was about was with my Uncle Charlie Hansen. He was a young man who emigrated from Denmark, worked on several farms in Alberta and eventually made his way north. He had been on a boat that made trips to Great Bear Lake and Aklavik. On their way south, along the Mackenzie in late October, they finally had to abandon their boat because of thick ice and began walking south along the shore and arrived in Fort Simpson.

He was a handy man. He got a job as a cook for the RCMP and eventually married my aunt and thus started a 40 year life in the North. He became the first contractor in town. He did everything; he cut ice for water supply, cut and haul wood, built houses, grew large gardens and even started a small sawmill. He eventually bought Andy Whittington’s hotel. This is where I, as a teenager, interacted with him, lived with him and worked for him and where I got my work ethic and sense of what business really was.

I split and hauled in wood, packed buckets of water and waited on the counter in the café that served coffee, pie and meals. Twenty-five (25¢) cents for coffee and pie and one dollar ($1.00) for a full meal.

Charlie was enterprising and a hard worker. His philosophy was “when things got tough, you just work harder.” Don’t loaf around and worry about it.

We go to 1970. I finished University and went back to my hometown of Fort Simpson. I started the Dene Co-op; an attempt to get local people into business. I always believed native people should be in business. We bought the Mission Garden tractor and implements and planted potatoes. We had a great harvest and in the fall, we shipped 100 bags to Father Ruyant in Inuvik at Grollier Hall, 50 bags to Semiler’s store and 100 bags locally to the hostel, the rest in and around town - $10.00 a bag of 100 lbs.

I remember a few weeks later Father Ruyant phoning me saying the 100 lb bags were not really 100 lbs. I told him it must have settled or the guys on the boat took some. They were 100 lb gunny sacks and we just filled them and assumed that’s what they weighed (100 lbs).

This may seem like a funny business to start with but I was recently talking to Chief Clarence Louie in Osoyyos. He told me that their first business venture in the 70s was renting out land for a vineyard to a big wine-making company. Now they make their own wine and sell it in their own resort hotel.

By the 1980’s and 1990’s in the NWT more and more native peoples were getting into private business: taxis, expediting, guiding, convenient stores, bed and breakfasts; small easy businesses to get into. Then with the settling of land claims came corporations, partnerships, investing in air lines, trucking, hotels, oil and gas, every type of business and even 1/3 interest in a pipeline; if and when it ever goes. Esso recently announced a two-year delay in its decision of the MCP so we’re looking at 2013.

In the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit were the first in 1984 to settle their claims. They received $162 million over 13 years, $10 million specifically for economic development. Because of Nellie, wise investments and active involvement in business they have increased their assets several fold. NorTerra Inc. – a holding company that includes Canadian North and NTCL among others – is owned jointly by the Inuvialuit and Nunasi Corp. It had over $500 million in revenues in 2008, making it one of Canada’s 500 biggest companies.

The Gwich’in Claim was settled in 1992 and the Sahtu Dene/Metis followed suit two years later in 1994. Increasingly, both groups are using their settlement funds to get into a wide range of businesses. Anyone travelling to Inuvik in the last few years has to be impressed with the many new buildings and businesses the Gwich’in now own.

The Tli’cho were the latest group to settle their land claim and self-government agreement in 2005 and the benefits of that are now being seen. Today, they have more than fifteen companies very much involved in providing services to the diamond mines. It helps to have diamonds in your backyard; it’s such a lucrative business.

The Tli’cho deserve a lot of credit. They are the most traditional – their way of life and culture. Many of them have made the jump to a modern industrial way of life. Years ago their leaders saw the value of education. With the creation of the Rae-Edzo school society in 1969 they were the first Aboriginal community in Canada to take control of their school. They have stressed higher education and now have dozens of their students at southern Universities every year and they subsidize their students with money from the Impact Benefit Agreements negotiated with the diamond mines.

In the NWT, the situation of native people being in business is new and has not been easy. Within 40 – 50 years, there’s been a change from life on the land, some of their leaders moving essentially, from tepees to boardrooms. I’m sure that’s been the case with the Yukon, too.

On a community level it required a radical change in attitude towards individuals who got the idea that maybe I can save my money, leave my job and work for myself; be independent. The individual was going against the community rule of “sharing” and not being too different from everyone else. I know that it’s a very simple thing but I had to learn that it was okay to barter. If someone offers to sell you something for a price it wasn’t an insult or an affront to suggest a lower price. That’s the nature of negotiations in business.

In the mid 1980’s, there was still a suspicion of business and any local person who dared take the initiative to start his own business was portrayed as selfish, money hungry and ostracized to a certain extent. Being a businessman he was now different.

The phenomenon of aboriginal business corporations has come about not solely by the skills/ambition of aboriginal business people. It has come about by northern business people willing to share their knowledge and skills, join forces with native peoples; many willing to work for aboriginal businesses, many others forming partnerships.

As I mentioned earlier, several years ago the Senate Aboriginal Peoples’ Committee started a study on aboriginal economic development. I was intrigued as to why some First Nations were succeeding and why others were mired down hopelessly in poverty and social problems.

Our findings were published in March 2007 in a report entitled “Sharing Canada’s Prosperity, a Hand Up, Not a Hand Out.” There are over a hundred First Nations across Canada who are succeeding at business. Many like Squamish, West Bank, Osoyoos in British Columbia, Millbrook near Truro in Nova Scotia are close to large cities while others like Lac LaRonge, the Cree in Northern Québec are in remote areas. We have copies of the report if anyone is interested.

Our report found a number of things.

First, leadership was important and that community members had to be on board and support the initiatives. This is not an easy task and there will be many questions along the way and some failures. People have to believe that there is no choice – like it or not - we have to get into business.

Leadership can take many forms – sometimes it is brash and bold, sometimes it is quiet and steady. It may take a strong Chief setting direction or it may take a group of people finding consensus and moving forward. But whatever form it takes it has to strong and it has to be responsive to the people of the community.

That's the second lesson we learned. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development found out in the US and our committee found the same thing in Canada.

Governance matters.

It needs to be open and accountable and the institutions have to be compatible with the local culture and community values. There is not a single model for good governance but there are some common principles.

Business functions best where there is a stable governance structure and the rules are clear. Who ever you work with -- other governments, bands, corporations – they like it best where the relationships and rules for operating are clear.

So having good local governance is an absolute minimum requirement for business to start, grown and prosper.

But even if you have strong leadership and good governance, Aboriginal communities face a lot of challenges. The three biggest of these are:

1. The Indian Act and Indian Affairs

2. Access to capital

3. Capacity

First Nations in the Yukon are fortunate as they have mostly settled their land claim and self-government agreements. They no longer have to operate under the Indian Act or within the bureaucracy of Indian Affairs. Many communities in southern Canada still have to deal with these cumbersome processes on a day-to-day basis. A lot of communities have worked hard on self-government to get out from under that bureaucracy. Others have chosen to replace parts of the Indian Act with more modern federal legislation. Where there is a will there is a way.

Acquiring sufficient capital is also a challenge. Land claims helps in that regard but sometimes it is not enough. I'm pleased to see that the final session today is all about finding capital.

Most communities also face capacity issues – not enough skilled managers or technicians or workers to do the job.

The ultimate solution is education and many communities have set up programs to keep students in school and to ensure they continue their learning at colleges and universities.

But running businesses is not something you can just learn out of a book. It takes experience, a certain amount of trial and error, and it takes mentorship.

Often communities want to put their own people to work right away. They put fresh graduates in charge of new businesses. Sometimes that works but sometimes it fails and that can lead to real problems both for the community and for the individuals.

An approach that has been taken by a lot of successful communities is to start by hiring the best managers around – even if they are not from the community or not even Aboriginal.

These managers have two jobs – the first is to get the business up and running and successful; the second is to train their replacement from among the local people working for them.

This is hard to do but in the long run it has been a very successful strategy in Westbank in BC, for the Inuvialuit in the Beaufort Delta, for Millbrook First Nation out in Nova Scotia.

Another issue for many communities – and this is the last point I want to make – is to decide what business they want to be in.

How do you get started? Often they will start with a store or a gas station, maybe a little construction company. This is a good beginning but it will not lead to the wealth and jobs that our people want and need.

The answer is to look to the past. We need to do what our people have always done – take advantage of the resources at hand.

If we had caribou, we ate caribou and and wore their hides. If we were on a big river we became traders.

That's what they mean in law when they say that Aboriginal rights are not frozen in time. Our right to benefit from the resources of our land is not limited to fish and fur – it includes minerals and oil and power and even the beauty of the land itself.

We have a right to benefit, a right to participate in development, a right to protect the environment and a right to be in business. The courts have consistently recognized the rights of Aboriginal people to be consulted and accommodated when it comes to develop taking place on their lands. This is a increasingly important factor right across the country.

Right now in Ontario, for example, the government is negotiating with First Nations over new energy projects and even the placement of transmission lines across traditional territories.

Although the duty to consult is a Crown responsibility that can't be delegated to industry, wise companies work with Aboriginal communities to come to an agreement before proceeding with development. Having the local community on side with and benefiting from developments makes the regulatory approval process smoother.

For Aboriginal people, they need to be open and take advantage of the resources around us. But we also build on the things we traditionally did well.

Take the example of the T'licho. When the diamond mines opened, the T'licho sat down and thought – what can we do to take advantage of this opportunity?Yes, we can work at the mines but what can we do in business?

They had always been people who moved from the forest to the barren lands. They had been traders and go-betweens. So that is the first businesses they decided to get into. Moving goods from Yellowknife to the mines.

And that was a starting place and from there they have expanded into all sorts of other businesses. But they built on what they already knew how to do.

When people speak of resources, they often mean minerals or oil and gas and certainly mines and pipelines present tremendous opportunities for First Nations to get into business.

But a resource can also be your location on a busy highway or next to or inside a larger prosperous community.

People can also be a resource if they are trained and ready to work.

And land can also be a resource – both for what might be found on or under it – but also as a place of beauty and regeneration. There are people all over the world who are willing to pay a lot of money to be able to come and experience out lands and our cultures.

So you need to look around and think about what it is you want for yourselves and your people – now and in the future.

The future will arrive whether you're ready or not but it will be a lot brighter if you've prepared yourself to embrace it and the possibilities it brings.

Thank you.

Speech to NWT Chamber of Commerce and Northern Aboriginal Business Association, Yellowknife, October 2009

When my grandmother’s Old Age Pension came, which was $25.00 - $40.00 once a month, I would go with my grandmother to the store, the HBC, to buy needed supplies. The only business in town was the HBC. Other prominent establishments were the churches, the RCMP, the Army Signals and The Indian Agent. Hunting and trapping was the dominant way of life. Making a living off the land and trading your furs for essential equipment and supplies was the way of life.

I’m reminded of the story that Joe Lafferty used to tell. One time he was coming to town with his dog team for Christmas. He had trapped and had quite a bundle of furs. He was very pleased with himself. He was in his sled, relishing the good time he would have. He was close to town and the dogs were moving along pretty fast. All of a sudden, the sled slowed. He looked back and there was a big black door standing on the carry-all. He yelled at the dogs and they lept ahead and when he looked again, the bear was standing in the trail waving good-bye to him. I’ll let you decide whether that story is true.

He was a handy man. The local people noticed he had wooden buttons on his coat. He had made wooden buttons to replace those that had fallen off, so they called him “De Chen” – wooden buttons. He got a job as a cook for the RCMP and eventually married my aunt and thus started a 40 year life in the North. He became the first contractor in town. He did everything; he cut ice for water supply, cut and haul wood, built houses, grew large gardens and even started a small sawmill. He eventually bought Andy Whittington’s hotel. This is where I, as a teenager, interacted with him, lived with him and worked for him and where I got my work ethic and sense of what business really was.

I split and hauled in wood, packed buckets of water and waited on the counter in the café that served coffee, pie and meals.

Charlie was enterprising and a hard worker. His philosophy was “when things got tough, you just work harder.” Don’t loaf around and worry about it.

We go to 1970. I finished University and went back to my hometown. I started the Dene Co-op; an attempt to get local people into business. I always believed native people should be in business. We bought the Mission Garden tractor and implements and planted potatoes. We had a great harvest and in the fall, we shipped 100 bags to Father Ruyant in Inuvik at Grollier Hall, 50 bags to Semiler’s store and 100 bags locally to the hostel.

I remember a few weeks later Father Ruyant phoning me saying the 100 lb bags were not really 100 lbs. I told him it must have settled or the guys on the boat took some. They were 100 lb bags and we just filled them and assumed that’s what they weighed.

We get to the 1980’s and 90’s where you see more and more native peoples getting into private business: taxis, convenient stores, bed and breakfasts; small easy businesses to get into. Then with the settling of land claims came corporations, partnerships, investing in air lines, trucking, hotels, oil and gas, every type of business and even 1/3 interest in a pipeline; if and when it ever goes.

The Inuvialuit were the first in 1984 to settle their claims. They received $162 million over 13 years, $10 million specifically for economic development. Through wise investments and active involvement in business they have increased their assets several fold. NorTerra Inc. – a holding company that includes Canadian North and NTCL among others – is owned jointly by the Inuvialuit and Nunasi Corp. It had over $500 million in revenues in 2008, making it one of Canada’s 500 biggest companies.

The Tli’cho were the latest group to settle their land claim and self-government agreement in 2005 and the benefits of that are now being seen. But the Tli’cho did not wait until their final agreement before getting heavily involved in business. Using the Impact Benefit Agreements negotiated with the diamond mines, they began setting up corporations and taking on major contracts. Today, they have more than fifteen companies very much involved in providing services to the diamond mines. It helps to have diamond mines in your backyard.

The situation of native people being in business is new and has not been easy. Within 40 – 50 years, there’s been a change from life on the land, some of their leaders moving essentially, from tepees to boardrooms.

Governments and industry have also played a role in promoting and insisting on the involvement of aboriginal peoples and making hard decisions that a certain percent will be aboriginal employees and certain opportunities will be given to aboriginal businesses.

The North is not unique in this regard and it’s becoming a way of doing business in the South particularly where there is resource development on or near native lands. Industry is looked upon more and more in the struggle to rid First Nations of poverty and the attendant social problems associated with such poverty.

In 2000, I had Lutra & Associates do a report and found that there were over 200 collectively owned aboriginal businesses and many private ones. Since then, no doubt the numbers have increased substantially.

Several years ago, as Chair of the Senate Aboriginal Peoples’ Committee, I started a study on aboriginal economic development. I was intrigued as to why some First Nations were succeeding and why others were mired down hopelessly in poverty and social problems.

I’ve mentioned education several times. Our children are our future and we have to do a better job at preparing them for it. They need to know about science and history, language and the law but we also have to teach them how to be successful in business. Business should become part of the curriculum from the early grades up to high school. They need to understand the basics of money.

Right now a lot of people come out of school without being able to balance their cheque book or set up a household budget. And that’s the minimum they should know. They also need to know where money comes from and how it is made – they especially have to know that it is business that generates wealth. And the only way they can get into business is by learning how to save and invest. They initially have to be willing to make some sacrifices and take some risks so they can reap the rewards later.

I want to say a few words about the regulatory system in the NWT.

Everyone knows about the difficulty with the regulatory process, especially for large projects. In the Yukon, the Carmacks Copper Mine was assessed under the Yukon Environmental and Social Assessment Board in about 18 months and the permitting process is now underway. Compare that to the eight years the Prairie Creek zinc mine have spent in review. We need to make improvements in the NWT process to achieve similar levels.

This won’t be easy. The current Boards and processes were designed through land claims to make sure Aboriginal people have a say in what happens on the land and water. They were developed piecemeal over time whereas the Yukon system was designed all at once. To make matters worse, as the Auditor General pointed out in her 2006 report, the federal government didn’t provide sufficient guidance or resources to the new Boards after they were set up. New money was provided in recent budgets and the Minister commissioned the McCrank report to recommend changes.

But really this is not something that can be fixed by Ottawa imposing a solution. It’s a learning experience. On the community/regional front, it requires confidence and trust that industry is not out to pillage and harm the environment and industry will need to do their part in assuring community people that the project will benefit them in employment, business opportunities or even an equity interest. I have no doubt that through time patience and experience these regulatory bodies will become more efficient and render decisions faster.

In my view, governments also need to become much more aggressive in promoting economic development. Business has to be seen as the only real way forward for the North and our communities. We need to spend more money encouraging, promoting and supporting economic development, especially at the community level. But more than that, we need to make sure that every decision made and every program delivered has to consider how it will promote economic growth. Any time we can find a way to divert money from social programs towards the economy, we should do it. In the long term, this will generate wealth and jobs and reduce the need for social programs.

As the Senator for the NWT, I have many occasions to speak about the North – how there are only 43,000 of us living in a big land, an area bigger than Québec.

I tell them we’re tough to be living in this harsh, cold environment. They should respect us – we are the basis for Canada’s claim for Arctic sovereignty. But we like the cold – the Inuit especially tell me ‘the colder the better.’ I’ve often thought of proposing a change to the Charter of Rights to include ‘the right to be cold.’

We have forged a unique northern society where there is more understanding and more give and take between peoples here. That ability to live together is one of our greatest strengths - an example for the rest of our country. We have accomplished much in the last 40 years – this will help us deal with the issues facing us. I think of global warming, arctic sovereignty and increased demands from the south for our resources. I know we will have the wisdom and strength to face these challenges and make sure the future bodes well in our favour.

Speech to NWT Association of Communities AGM, Inuvik May 2009

I’m glad to be here with you. Thank you for inviting me. Welcome.

So much to say, so little time.

Long, long ago when the North was young in 1970, I had just finished University in Edmonton and I applied for the Settlement Manager’s job in Fort Simpson. There had been no such position. There had been an Indian Agent. There was Sid Hancock. He was the area Administrator. He was responsible for all things government.

Democracy was in its infancy when I arrived in Simpson to start the job. Mark Fairbrother who was Chairman said to me “Sid ran the Hamlet out of a shoe box” and pointed to a small box. I was handed the paper box. Don’t expect an office. Don’t expect a secretary.

He then gave me a list:

· print up some STOP signs – there was just Main Street and a few adjoining roads;

· there’s some holes in the road, fill them up – borrow a shovel from DPW if you need one;

· there’s a lot of loose dogs in town - we need a dog pound.

That was my introduction to local government.

So there I was with my newly minted University degree digging and shovelling dirt, filling holes, catching dogs and making them a home. So things never change.

Local government, municipal government is very much dealing with roads, dogs and dumps. In Yellowknife’s case, ravens and seagulls.

I didn’t mind the work. But when the territorial election was called later that fall, I put my name in and to my surprise, I won. That started me on my political career. Interestingly, my first portfolio in government was with local government. Now, I could have my own office and secretary.

Being the Senator for the Northwest Territories gives me a chance to make some observations about politics in the south and the north. Coming from the North where we have a consensus style of government, I’m always surprised at the extent of partisanship in Ottawa. We deal with issues on merit – not philosophy. We’re civil and friendly with each other. In Ottawa, Conservatives don’t mix with Liberals, even less with NDP and never with the Bloc, except for a short spell. Whenever I have lunch with my brother-in-law, Leon Benoit, a Conservative MP, we raise eyebrows. Each party looks at each other with jaundiced eyes.

I’m in the Liberal fold. I often hear my colleagues speak of other parties as “really bad people” who are out to ruin the country. I tend to be an idealist. Whenever I hear of any Minister coming to the North, I tell them “I’m the Senator for the North, invite me”. Perfectly good sense to the North but not done by southern political standards.

The one exception to all the partisanship is our Senate Aboriginal Peoples Committee. Gerry St. Germain is the Chairman, he’s Conservative. I’m the Deputy Chair. We work in a non-partisan way and we have had a great deal of success in dealing with difficult issues. We’ve dealt with economic development, water on reserves and land claims both specific and comprehensive. Right now we’re doing a study on Band elections.

Sovereignty and climate change have caught the attention of southern Canada and focused the government and public northward. Large pieces of ice bergs, masses of ice tumbling into the ocean are flashing on national television. Hard to dispute satellite pictures of receding arctic ice and its annual reduction. Weather patterns seem less regular and occasionally chaotic.

Our winters seem to be less intense: don’t get as much -40°,-50°; the warm spells we get in the height of winter is welcome. No one dislikes the occasional warm reprieve. But I haven’t heard a widespread call for climate change – bring it on. We’re all concerned about the effects.

The cold I think is etched deeply in our northern genes. Karen and I went to a warm country for 12 days this winter. When we returned to Ottawa it was -30° for a few days. It was cold but our bodies didn’t shudder in revulsion of the cold. We didn’t mind being back in the snow and cold. I’ve heard it said by some Northerners that they like the cold, cold being consistently -25°, -30°, -40° all winter long.

We have a Charter of Rights ensuring freedom of such things as speech, religion, freedom from discrimination. I suggest we add to the Charter of Rights to be cold.

The government has sought to establish it’s foothold in the Arctic claiming sovereignty by establishing military bases, greater presence of the Coast Guard, Armed Forces, increase the number of rangers, Arctic ports and extending the water pollution boundary.

While we look amused by the coming and going to federal Ministers, even the Prime Minister, to the North in the end its People who are the biggest reason for Canada’s claim to the Arctic lands and waters.

There’s a debate in Canada about the Senate, its value, purpose, whether it should exist, if it does, should it be elected. A few years ago there was this Senator who put us all in a bad light who lived in Mexico and made his “once a year” trip to Ottawa to occupy his seat and claim his salary.

For me, it’s an honour and privilege to represent the Northwest Territories in the Senate. I’m often asked, “How is it to be a Senator?”

Very good!

Our week begins on Tuesday and ends Thursday. MPs work harder than us – Monday through Friday. My staff is often amused by my saying: Thank God it’s Thursday!

Until the mid 80’s, Senators were appointed for life. At least now it’s only 75. Even so, on any given day when Senate is in session many can be seen nodding off and having their afternoon rest.

The Senate is very quiet place – nobody raises voices unless you scare them awake. They have a nurse on stand-by and a health clinic in a nearby room. They have Pages, young men and women who routinely check your pulse particularly if you nap more than half an hour.

As I look over the agenda for this weekend’s meetings, I’m impressed by the depth and breadth of the issues you are discussing. From elections to electricity, from capital planning to capacity building and from sewers to sustainability, you are covering many of the critical issues facing your residents.

I have a great deal of faith in your ability to do this work. Recently, when I undertook the study into climate change that led to the publication of “On the Frontlines of Climate Change,” I learned how community governments are among the most impacted by these environmental changes.

But I also learned that you are among the most innovative and creative players in dealing with this issue.

The involvement of local governments in exploring alternative energy sources – whether it is geothermal in Yellowknife, wind in Tuktoyuktuk or wood pellets and small scale hydroelectricity in a number of communities – is impressive.

Although the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions given off in the NWT is quite small in the bigger scheme of things, every reduction helps and the example you set – here in one of the harshest climates in the world – resonates far beyond the borders of our territory.

Thank you for giving me this time to speak to you. I encourage you in your work and wish you well.

Welcoming Remarks – Inuvik Petroleum Show 2009

I am pleased to welcome you to 9^th Annual Petroleum Show. I’ve had the pleasure of attending several of these events and have always been impressed by the wide range of topics and expertise. This year looks to be no exception.

This year’s show takes place during difficult times. The on-going delay around the JRP final report coupled with the global economic recession has created uncertainty and economic hardship for the industry and for the communities of the Mackenzie delta.

But to quote the people of Aklavik: Never Say Die!

They say it’s always darkest before the dawn. Although June in Inuvik is never dark at all. Still, the advantage of being at the bottom of the cycle is there is nowhere to go but up.

But in the meantime, there are things that governments can and should be doing to both assist our communities through these difficult times and to prepare them for the future.

I would call your attention to a recent report of the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. Entitled “With Respect, Canada’s North” this report was the result of a study by the Committee including a visit by a number Senators to the Northwest Territories and Yukon.

The report made nine recommendations that, if implemented, would stimulate the local economy, while preparing the region for both climate change and future economic development.

These recommendations specifically include the need to complete the road to Tuk and to begin replacing ice roads with permanent all-weather roads. With respect to the Pipeline, it calls on the Federal government to streamline its own decision making process, so it can respond quickly once the JRP and NEB reports are complete.

The Report also calls on the Federal government to recognize that it is the people who live here that are Canada’s greatest claim to sovereignty. They should demonstrate that by respecting local decision-making and by negotiating a resource revenue sharing agreement to benefit the permanent residents of the North.

I have a number of copies of the complete Report for those who are interested.

The Inuvik Petroleum Show is a great event where you can see old friends and make new ones, where you can learn more about the opportunities in the Beaufort Delta and maybe make a deal or two. It’s a great place to network and it’s a great place to have fun.

I wish you all the best over the next few days as you explore the many opportunities and possibilities – both on-shore and off – that the Beaufort Delta present.