(check against delivery)

(speech delivered April 22, 2012, Palais des Congres)

Good evening and welcome to the International Polar Year 2012 Conference.

I am pleased to be here to give you a quick snapshot of the Northwest Territories and share some of what makes us unique in Canada and in the world.

The Northwest Territories has a population of just over 43,000 people living in an area of over 1.3 million square kilometers - That’s bigger than the area of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan combined.

We are home to seven different Aboriginal groups, each with their own distinctive culture and languages. The Northwest Territories is unique in Canada in recognizing 11 official languages, including nine Aboriginal languages that are still spoken daily.

Half of the people in our territory are of Aboriginal descent and maintain close cultural and spiritual connections to the land. Traditional activities like hunting and trapping are still important to many of our residents.

Over 70 percent of households in our smaller communities rely on traditionally harvested food to feed their families and maintain a connection to the land and centuries old practices.

The Northwest Territories is one of only two in Canada that practices consensus government, an approach that combines Aboriginal traditions of collective decision-making with the Westminster parliamentary system.  We do not have political parties.  Each Member of our Legislative Assembly is elected as an independent and we all work together to define and implement a common agenda.

Our diverse cultures, languages and political system define us as  unique, however, it is our relationship with the land that truly defines us as Northerners.

We in the North are on the front lines of climate change. We’re already seeing the effects of global warming and they have serious implications for the sustainability of our communities. Wildlife populations and patterns are changing, disrupting long-established hunting practices and creating challenges for those people who continue to rely on traditional foods. We depend greatly on winter roads to connect and supply our remote communities, but our trucking season continues to get shorter, creating transportation challenges.

Melting permafrost is affecting our infrastructure, requiring northerners to adopt new building techniques and invest in more maintenance. Looking ahead, the prospect of increased shipping activity in the Northwest Passage raises issues around potential environmental impacts along our Arctic coast and in our marine environment as well as implications for Arctic sovereignty.

Accurately predicting and mitigating the potential impacts of climate change in the North will be critical to the sustainability of our communities and well-being of our people.

We will need the ongoing efforts of scientists and researchers to support evidence-based decision making as we learn to come to terms with our changing environment.

This conference, which aims to translate knowledge into action, will be an important opportunity for governments and others to learn from research conducted during the International Polar Year and beyond. Representatives of our government will be presenting and participating in the conference, and I look forward to finding ways to apply the latest findings to our policies, actions and decisions.

While we are doing our part in the Northwest Territories, climate change is everyone’s responsibility. No single one of us can address climate change on our own.

It will take the work and cooperation of governments around the world, as well as industry and private citizens.

We in the North know what it takes to build consensus and find common ground that people can agree on. With seven Aboriginal governments in our territory exercising or negotiating their own jurisdictions, the Government of the Northwest Territories is well-practiced in building successful partnerships across a broad spectrum of players with diverse interests.

Ours is a territory where the ancient can exist alongside the modern, where competing interests don’t have to mean that somebody wins and somebody loses. This is something the North can offer the rest of Canada – and the world – and may be one of the best ways we will be able to address climate change.

Now, it is my pleasure to introduce to you an artist who exemplifies the way we have of doing things in the Northwest Territories.  Leela Gilday is a Dene Canadian singer/songwriter  from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, whose music incorporates the traditional and the modern and speaks to her experience as a Northern Aboriginal person and global citizen.

From a very young age, Leela was immersed in music and by the age of eight had already begun her singing career. She has released three solo albums and has been honoured with many awards including Best Female Artist at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, a Juno award and a Western Canadian Music award for her second album. She performed and stole the show at Canada s Northern House at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce a passionate and soulful performer –my favourite artist -  Ms. Leela Gilday.