--and that was not one of the high points.
CBC radio and television let those of us who were living in remote locations feel that we were living in Canada. In the spring, when Gzowski would get on the line with Victoria and talk to them about the buds bursting there--in February or March, I think--and we knew that we would be sitting around the barbecue on Canada Day in the snow, we felt a little more remote. All the same, CBC helped us feel that we were part of Canada.
A number of years later, while still in what was then Iqaluit, I was lucky enough to host Peter Gzowski for a number of days. He came up during our Toonik Tyme festival. He was absolutely amazed at the number of Inuit elders who came up and shook his hand because they recognized him from his brief foray into television. I think it was called “Gzowski Presents” or something; I can't remember. At any rate, people were so happy he'd come north.
We sit here in the NWT and listen to our politicians talk about devolution, but it seems they go unheeded by the rest of Canada until the CBC down south picks up our northern feeds and broadcasts them to the south. Suddenly we're on the national stage; we seem to receive some validation because of that, and issues that are important to us are heard by the rest of the nation.
Just this past Sunday I was listening to CBC morning, and they ran Dave Miller's story, originally broadcast on CBC North, about the wolverine, about the legend and significance of it to our first nations people here in the NWT. CBC North and CBC national do help give remote people a voice they would not otherwise have.
When most of us from here in Yellowknife go south, people who ask us where we're from will say, geez, I'd love to visit “the Yukon”. The Yukon has a profile that the NWT still does not have. Perhaps that's because one of your most famous broadcasters, Pierre Berton, came from there. His tales of the Yukon and the magic of the gold rush really excited people down south.
The NWT hasn't hooked into that same kind of pipeline. The people of the NWT need CBC North to help us get our message out, and you should need us; the NWT is unique for its land and its people. We have at least eleven language groups, and that's before we even factor in our new Canadians. We have consensus government. That's unique and special.
Canada would not be the same without the north or the CBC. And the CBC is not just our radio and television network, it is the radio and television network.
Thank you.