I want to thank the member from Kiiwetinoong for your comments today.

When he and I were first elected in 2018, he actually stayed with me, and my daughter was working on Big Grassy reserve up north for the summer and she called me up one day, she was very agitated, she said, “Dad, Dad, you won’t believe what happened today. I was walking home from the school and a bear ran across the road right in front of me.” So the member from Kiiwetinoong came to my place and I told him this story. He started to laugh and I said, “Why are you laughing?” and he said, “Seeing a bear cross the road in Kiiwetinoong is like saying you saw a truck cross the road in Toronto.”

So I went up to visit her over the long weekend and I took a whole bunch of dog treats, and she started feeding one of the dogs these dog treats. She would feed it all the way home to her place and then eventually the dog learned, and in the mornings, the dog would come and meet her at her place and then walk the mile to the school with her.

My question to the member of Kiiwetinoong: These rez dogs actually provide a service for the people on the reservation. Can you talk about the value of the rez dogs?