I'm going to introduce myself in my language.
[Witness speaks in Dene]
I've said that my name is Wilbert Kochon and I'm the chief of the Behdzi Ahda" First Nation. Thank you for listening.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. I am from Colville Lake, a small community 745 kilometres north of Yellowknife. We have a population of about 150. Most of them are members of the Behdzi Ahda" First Nation.
We established our community the same year that the Sahtu land claim was signed in 1993. We built the community by ourselves. As a smaller community, we did not get as much attention as larger communities. That forced us to do things on our own.
We are an independent people. We built our community at a time when Canada's policies wanted to make us dependent.
It seems to us that your policies are stuck in the past. Canada has made a lot of mistakes with those policies.
We have a different view of the future. We want to move forward. Canada and the GNWT should move forward as well. You need to look at your policies again and renew them.
I will now ask our self-government chief negotiator, Joseph Kochon, to speak.