Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the budget implementation act, Bill C-28.
Budget 2003 reflects our government's commitment to make Canada a land of ever widening opportunity for all our citizens. It acts on the promise in the Speech from the Throne that benefits of the new knowledge economy will touch every community, every family and every Canadian.
When the House was not in session for two weeks recently, I took the opportunity to go to my riding. There are over half a million square miles to cover. I took the opportunity to travel to the upper part of my riding. I have 33 communities. I went to Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour and Holman Island. These are very remote communities but very thriving. In remote communities the cost of living is very high. Everything the government does really impacts on the lives of the people who live in the remotest regions of our country.
In the community of Sachs Harbour I was blessed to meet with the mayor and council and talk about some of their needs. It is interesting that the issue of policing came up. There are no RCMP stations. Mayor Andy Carpenter was very well pronounced on that issue.
We addressed the issue of aboriginal policing in the budget. That was very appropriate and might prove to be very useful.
I also went to Banks Island where there are 50,000 muskox. The Inuvialuit people of that region have taken it upon themselves to cull some of the herd. They use every part of the animal basically for food. They brought in a food inspector from Alberta to go through the whole food inspection process from the beginning to the end.
The hide of the animal is taken to a shearer in less than 15 minutes so it does not cool off. They use what is called the qiviut, wool of the finest quality that comes off of the animal. It is rendered into a wool that is like mohair. It is called qiviut in the Inuvialuktun language. It is an absolutely fabulous industry.
I wish I were wearing my sweater today. I know we are not allowed to use props but qiviut sweaters are absolutely beautiful. I was given one by Nellie Cournoyea, the chair of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. These products are rendered from all of the byproducts of the animal. The hide itself is rendered into different leather products. It is very stylish and classy.
One of the people who is forging ahead and working with the different government departments on this initiative is a guy by the name of Patrick Schmidt. The work this man does on behalf of the Inuvialuit is outstanding.
I am so proud of those people. The people in Sachs Harbour live in a small remote community. The weather was very bad but the plane landed in close to blizzard conditions. Travelling is an enormous undertaking. We provide some very good opportunities and good facilities for their undertakings. There is an airport.
I went on to Holman Island, the home of printmaking. It is absolutely fabulous. The land is so beautiful. As I flew from Sachs Harbour to Holman, I could see Cape Parry or Pin Main where the distant early warning system is quite evident. We get all of our information for the military in the remote regions of Canada through this system.
It is tremendous to think of the role my riding and the occupants of those lands play in the whole issue of Arctic sovereignty. That is very important as well.
Not all of the issues that relate to the military are necessarily financial ones. A lot of technically complicated international agreements speak to the kinds of things that are happening up there.
I also went to Paulatuk. Paulatuk is interesting because it has a young population, as do most of those communities. It is looking to build a youth centre. It is working with its young people to help develop the community.
I am supposed to be talking about the budget, but the budget relates to the way people live across the country.
Going back to Holman Island, the interesting thing about Canada is the kind of travel that people do. We went to the school in Holman. The teacher in charge is an Inuit woman who speaks the Inuit language. We went through all the cultural classes and looked at the quality of education the kids are receiving. It is awesome.
I also noticed that there is a high number of people from Newfoundland. Think of the distance between Newfoundland and Holman and how far those people have come. Those people are really resilient. The Atlantic sends a lot of people to that region.
It is awesome to do this during my time off because it really puts me in touch with the people at the community level. There are perhaps another 15 communities to visit before I have completed the cycle. The riding is so huge and the transportation costs are enormous.
Someone told me in Paulatuk that it costs $9 for a grapefruit. Imagine paying $9 for a grapefruit. Imagine what people pay to feed their families properly. That is why the communities are highly reliant on caribou and country foods. It is a very healthy way for the community to sustain itself and it is also why issues that affect that are really important to them.
The region I come from has a very young population. There are many things happening. We live in one of the most beautiful parts of Canada. All of the Northwest Territories comprise my riding. It reaches out toward Yukon, into the high Arctic, over to Nunavut and down to the Alberta-Saskatchewan-B.C. borders. It is absolutely phenomenal what is in the territories and the potential that exists right now.
The $2.5 billion annual federal investment on the national child benefit has helped to reduce poverty to the lowest level in 20 years. It has had a really good impact. That is important for my riding because it has a very young community.
I noticed another thing in my community. If we are going to do resource development, we have to invest money. I do not think we are a sinkhole for money in the Northwest Territories. We have the greatest opportunity to become self-sustaining. We need infrastructure. We need money to make it cheaper, for instance, for us to build a pipeline.
If we have a completed road, it will be cheaper for us to build the pipeline that we are talking about. I am convinced in my heart of hearts that we are going to build the Mackenzie Valley pipeline first. We need to get behind it and support it. It would be good for the north and for all of Canada. It is something we need to do to sustain our energy needs.
Along with infrastructure, I also wanted to talk about how we have managed to work with the new industry that has hit Canada. I am not sure we have done enough. There is a lot more to do with the diamond industry.
On July 15 I believe we will be opening the second diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. We are the top fourth diamond producing jurisdiction in the world and may end up being the first. We are exponentially putting money back into the fiscal coffers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. We need to invest in that industry. We need to help those people to do a better job. We need to help the syndicated jewellers and the value added industry build a stronger economy in the north because the opportunity is there.
The other thing is in the north we have the absolutely best opportunity to set a template for the rest of Canada and the world because it is majority aboriginal populated. To build something that will sustain itself, the government will get money back if it invests in the north. That is absolutely important, and the budget speaks to that.