Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for this opportunity.
One MP represents the whole of the Yukon territory and two in the Northwest Territories. When things change Nunavut will have one and the Northwest Territories will have one.
The impression I want to make is that the land mass is huge. Possibly people in the south forget or just do not know the difficulty of travel. If they have the opportunity, they should come to the north to see how huge and diverse it is. There are not many voices to speak for life in the north.
Another aspect is that the languages of first nations are very much alive in the north. If members have an opportunity to go to Old Crow to a Gwich'in gathering or into the far north to an Innu gathering, I suggest they take the opportunity. Then they will understand very clearly that the economy of those people still comes from their land.
We want to be heard and understood. We want to be a valued part of the country. Very often we are treated as a colony, as an afterthought, and are barely mentioned unless in passing or if someone remembers the north.
Parliamentarians should have the chance to go to the north, to explore it, to listen to the people and to see the huge size of it. I ask them to imagine if they had to represent a physical area that large.