Mr. Speaker, it is quite clear we are facing a very complex problem.
I do not pretend to have the answer but I can tell the member that I have read studies. One of them had a wonderful title. In fact the author and I were colleagues at the Australian National University for a long time. It was called The Affluent Subsistence Economy .
The south sea islands are so far away from all markets that the south sea islands will never be able to be industrialized and have the kind of living standards we have in our industrial country. It is simply a physical impossibility. I wish it were different. I wish we could fly. It is not in the cards.
Why am I using this example of the south sea islands? It is because that is something we can relate to. I certainly come from a temperate climate. This has always been my dream.
The areas in the north are very much like the south sea islands that have been studied. There was no great interference in many of them from the outside. They all have a reasonably good living. They are healthy. They have their traditions. They are from all descriptions of sociologists a happy, well-balanced society.
However they now all want radios, televisions and other things. One of the tragedies of our lives, of the reality of this world is that there is no way that by staying on these islands they can have these things. I did not invent it. The analysts did not invent it. It is simply a fact of life. There are distances and they cannot have this.
They have a choice. Either they continue to have their affluent subsistence with all the satisfaction, all the dreams and romantic attributes that are associated with that kind of a life or, dare I say it, they leave. They go to the big island and they join the big cities with all the problems that go along with it.
Time is too limited to draw the parallel of what that analysis implies for the native people of our country. I can tell you there will never be in the centre of Yukon an industry sufficient to maintain the people there by their own work at a living standard corresponding to that which we have in Toronto or in Vancouver. I believe that it is a contradiction, that we are not serving them by giving in to their demands. I do not deny that the hon. minister has been listening to them.
They say they want enough resources in the centre of Yukon so that they can live as well as the people in Vancouver. It is not possible. I believe the sooner we come to that realization and tell them they have a choice but they cannot have it both ways, the better off they will be and we will be.
That is an outline of the solution I have. I know it is not popular, but I have not been elected to keep on talking about what is popular. I was elected to speak out and to say things the way I see them after 30 years of spending my life reading, writing and thinking about these matters.