I rise on behalf of the Liberal Party to also pay tribute to the 10th anniversary of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Carcross-Tagish First Nation for selfgoverning. I would like to start today by welcoming our honoured guests here in the gallery.

It was an absolute honour to participate in KDFN’s “Celebrating Who We Are” last Friday at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre. I had the honour of sitting with Chief Roberta Joseph from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and, Mr. Speaker, we had chills as we watched the incredible performances that night, especially from our youth from across the territory. It was absolutely amazing.

I also rise on behalf of the Liberal Party and the Official Opposition to pay tribute to Aboriginal Awareness Week. This week serves to honour the many cultures and languages of Canada’s First Nation communities. Aboriginal Awareness Week is a time to celebrate and reflect on the contributions of aboriginal Canadians to Canada.

Yukon First Nations have had an extraordinary impact on our development as a territory and have been leaders nationally in the development of self-government agreements. Recently we celebrated the 20^th anniversary of self-governance and today 11 of Yukon’s First Nations have signed self-government agreements. These will form the cornerstone of our economic and social development for generations to come.

I am happy to rise on behalf of the Liberal Party and also the Official Opposition to pay tribute to the 2015 Dawson City gold show.

As mentioned, this is the largest industry and placer mining consumer trade show in North America. As well, this will be the 29^th annual gold show hosted by the Dawson City Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure and privilege to attend many gold shows over the years, and it is always a fantastic event and a very fun weekend. Every year, I would join teachers and students, actually — and what a wonderful opportunity to showcase the industry to the students and also for the students to showcase their family members to their teachers and to their other peers — as we all know, the community goes further than just a classroom — and to showcase the important work that the families do in placer mining. The gold show provides a number of business opportunities to showcase their products and services and for Dawsonites and Yukoners alike to meet, interact and get your flowers for the season as well.

I also rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus and the Official Opposition to pay tribute to May as Celiac Awareness Month.

Each year, more and more Canadians are diagnosed with the chronic autoimmune condition for which the only known treatment is a strict gluten-free diet. It is thought that as many as 300,000 Canadians have celiac disease, but the majority of those individuals have not yet been diagnosed.

Mr. Silver: I also rise today on behalf of the Yukon Liberal Party to pay tribute to National Police Week, which runs from May 11 to 15.

Police Week began in Canada in the 1970s as a way to connect citizens with their local police force. We also use the week to honour members of our local police force and to thank them for the hard work that they do in the line of duty. Here in Yukon, the RCMP, or the North-West Mounted Police as they were known at the time, had a long history and are closely tied to stories of the Klondike Gold Rush. Inspector Charles Constantine was sent to the Yukon to report on activities in 1896.

I just wanted to add my voice, rising on behalf of the Liberal Party, to also tribute our nurses during National Nursing Week — just maybe with a little bit of a rural flare.

The Yukon nursing community is a very strongly dedicated group, and the rural nurses are absolutely no exception to that rule. We’ve talked about our specialist nurses having to work, travel and see patients in many different communities each week, and we’ve had other folks talk about these schedules and how hard it must be. They often go well above and beyond the expectations of their jobs because they want to see results — because they are part of the community — and they want to ensure the well-being of those who they care for. Our nurses are compassionate, passionate and empathetic, and I believe that this is why they are at the root of a collaborative model of health care.

It gives me great pleasure to rise today on behalf of all my colleagues here in the Legislative Assembly to speak to the Brothers in Spirit campaign. The Brothers in Spirit campaign has grown out from a recent movement to encourage and involve men in the prevention of violence against aboriginal women in Yukon and across Canada.

Yukon Aboriginal Women’s Council started to include men in their workshops last year. The 2014 Brothers in Spirit project was a two-and-one-half day workshop coordinated with the aim to reach out to Yukon aboriginal men and women alike. For this two-day symposium, YAWC invited two delegates from the 14 Yukon First Nations to attend, and partnerships were formed with existing male-centred campaigns.

I also rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus to pay tribute to Yukon Mining and Geology Week. I would like to start by welcoming, obviously, all the members of the mining community who are in the gallery here today.

Mr. Speaker, when people think of the Yukon, they often have two distinct images that they think about. One, of course, is our open, vast wilderness, of our mountains and our rivers. More often, the image turns to the century miners heading over the Chilkoot to find their riches in the Klondike.

I rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus to also add my voice today and to thank my colleagues in education. I would like to start with a quote from John F. Kennedy: “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

Mr. Speaker, today as I prepared for this tribute, I started thinking about all of the gifts that I have received along the way, as I learned from my mentors and from my elders, and the gifts that I attempted to pass on to my students as I taught in the Yukon. I thought about the gift of confidence that I received from my very first experience with bullies in grade 3. Ms. Anne McGillivray — she went and took away that bully’s power and she gave it to me. She taught me a thing or two about self-worth. I had no clue up until that day that bullies are cowards. The confidence that she gifted me became a bully repellent. I still own that gift. It has become a prized possession and it’s one that I shared with all my students.

I rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus to also pay tribute to International Day of the Midwife. Each year on May 5, we mark International Day of the Midwife, and this year’s midwife theme is “Midwives: for a better tomorrow.” The theme highlights the role that midwives can play in making the future better for mothers and for children.

Midwives have become an increasingly popular option for birth in Canada in the last 15 years and have also had a strong presence overseas. There’s much work to be done here in the Yukon to support midwives. We remain one of only two jurisdictions in Canada to not have midwife registration.