Madam Speaker, through you I will respond to my learned colleague. I appreciate these words, because they come from such a place of experience. Absolutely, I think northerners from the Mackenzie Valley have every right to be offended by the actions of the previous government. The Conservative members continue to articulate it to this day in debates in this House, treating land claims agreements as though they are red tape or something to be cut up and put in the paper recycling bin. It makes no sense. It is offensive to any Canadian who holds indigenous rights and the constitutional protections of those indigenous rights to heart.
At the end of the day, it now falls to our government to respect those agreements that were made and the history of the indigenous people from that region.