Richard Edjericon

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today the Vatican development and education office released a statement formally reputing to the doctrine of discovery. These theories, backed by 15th century Papal Bulls, legitimize colonial era seizure of Indigenous lands and formed the jurisdiction for the forceful disposition of sovereign Indigenous nations from their territories. The doctrine of discovery interbills are based on the presumed racial superiority of European Christians people and has been used for the to dehumanize, exploit, and subject Indigenous people and dispose Indigenous peoples of their land...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to say the same thing as the Premier, welcome everybody from the the Minister and all his colleagues and staff here to the House. And I'm glad that they were able to listen to what we have to say in our riding. And it's very important. Also I just want to say that, you know, you come out to Dettah this coming weekend and enjoy your time out there. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank the Minister. And I look forward to working with you and also with the federal counterparts to, again, find money for our community. And the sooner the better. And I think when we come to the community of Lutselk'e, we're going to have that discussion. And there's other opportunities. Like, you said as well is that there's housing; there's materials in the community, the CoOp, and everybody could all have a hand, including the parks. So I think if you all got together and had that discussion, I'm sure we could reduce that cost as well. But...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I'm glad the Minister's here; we're all going to take advantage of that.

Mr. Speaker, like, I mentioned this year I've been trying to get a winter road to my communities but, again, it just still goes to show that, you know, we got winter roads to Colville Lake, Deline, Gameti, Nahanni Butte, Norman Wells, Somba K'e, Tulita, Wekweeti, Whati, Wrigley. And then we got ice roads. We got Aklavik ice road, Dettah ice road. Ice crossings. Liard crossing, Mackenzie River crossing, Peel River crossing. And then we got a road to Tibbitt Lake. And this year I asked...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you, Premier. You know, I, you know, we're getting land claims done here in the North, across Canada and, you know, a lot of this is based on treaties and, you know, took a long time to get to that point. Especially here in the Northwest Territories, now they're coming together. But this recent announcement now that just came out, you know, I know for sure it's going to get talked about. It's going to be talked about in days to come. And I just want to know how we're going to probably with the help of the GNWT, what can you do to pressure the Catholic...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to apologize to the Premier for not getting my questions to you a little bit earlier. Since the Vatican announced announcement, I only found out this morning of this announcement. Today the Vatican development and education office released a statement formally reputing, or in other words to reject or untrue or unjust, the doctrine of discovery.

Going forward, Mr. Speaker and I'm sure the GNWT Premier and the federal Government of Canada will need time to review the Vatican's announcement to reputing the doctrine of discovery and how this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Premier, for your response. Normally at the end of a public inquiry, through that process we also could look at, you know, compensation and also a public apology. So that's kind of what I'm hearing from the community, from the chief and council in Lutselk'e, and they brought that to my attention. So in our dialogue, I guess as we bring this out and look at it and how we're going to approach it, that's also something that the people are looking for. So just so the Premier knows about that so maybe if she could just add a comment to that as well. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for your latitude in extending me some time to conclude my Member's statement. And thank you to all my colleagues as well.

Mr. Speaker, whenever I go back into my riding in Lutselk'e or Fort Resolution, they keep talking about Cosmos 954 and the impacts and the cumulative impacts as well. And that happened in 1978. And I know bringing this up now, but I didn't give enough time to the Premier, and I do apologize about that as well. But I just wanted to see if there's a way we could work with this government and Government of Canada to start bringing this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I go back into the communities, like we got a lot of community members and elders talk about that there is still probably a large uranium that's probably in the water and they're concerned about that. That's also on the land. So that affects the fish and the aquatic life and birds and everything else. So I look forward to work with the Premier on this. But this is going back to 1978. Giant Mine, you know, it happened in 1946, 56 years later it closed, and we had a public inquiry, a public inquiry which essentially is like an environmental assessment hearing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the headwaters is the life and blood of our homeland in the Mackenzie River basin. Throughout the years, we have been forced to adjust to a confluence of industrial threats upstream from us, a toxic cocktail of deadly contaminants flowing past our camps, communities, and impacting our waters sorry, cocktails impacting our waters, lands and animals and the people. The health of the water and the land is connected to the wellbeing of our people. We face increased health problems from a rare disease and a climb in cancer rates throughout the North but, in...