Thank you, Mr. Mercer. I would like to thank the good Lord for making a way for me to represent my people here at the Legislative Assembly. I would like to thank all of the people in my riding who put their trust in me to be here to represent them.

In my one month of door-knocking and home visits and stuff like that to the communities, the problems and the priorities I have for Nunakput are identifying housing solutions for our housing problems and shortages in our communities; advocate for health and social impacts, with our people who are travelling with escorts and for families who are not able to afford travel when somebody is sick in the hospital from our communities; education, our post-secondary education social passing has to stop; it's a rippling effect right through our government and right through the system; assure and monitor responsible resource development; monitor and secure viable work plans for climate change, shoreline erosion, and safe responsible transportation services; wildlife and traditional land management, working with our Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and our local governments; cultural and traditional resources; work together to support and maintain good working relationships with local community governments.

My riding has many issues. We are seeing effects from climate change. We live it every day, climate change, seeing it sooner than anyone else, impacting our lives, those who live in Nunakput. Tuktoyaktuk's shoreline is falling into the ocean, and people are having to move, but, Mr. Clerk, we are not going to move. I am going to make sure that people who are staying on the north side of the community are going to stay in their homes, and this government is going to make a way to fix that shoreline.

From the few decades of changing weather means hunters cannot trust the ice, cannot get much for our families; the barges are delayed, meaning we cannot build homes, stock up on our food plan for the winter. Cost of living is higher in Nunakput than anywhere else in this territory. It keeps going up and up. We have to work with our local stores or the federal government to provide proper pricing and proper help for the smaller communities on the coast.

We need to know our problems. We need to stop studying them and start acting on it. We need to help people work. The oil and gas moratorium is hurting our communities in the whole delta. There is nothing going on up there, and we need work. We have to work with our federal government to get this moratorium lifted with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and to be able to get to our resources because we are resource rich and cash poor. The Beaufort Delta is using up to reduce the power and heating in our communities right now. It's getting to the federal government and getting it sorted out for the whole region. Nothing is happening. We have to work with the federal government to get our gas to market. We need safe and reliable transportation services in our communities, fuel costs and sending up clean fuel so we are not in the situation that we are in right now for the last two years. We have nine months of winter. That is nine months of proper planning that you could do and four months of shipping. That has to get sorted out. It affects us when we are travelling on the land. It's costing us more and more to go further, so the gas prices, that has to change, also.

We know the highway to Tuktoyaktuk, almost 8,000 tourists drove that road this year alone, but there is nothing for them to do. Our government is downloading on the local community government, the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, to provide services that they should be providing, where they provide them everywhere in the Northwest Territories, but where we stand coming out of O and M for the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, it's not right. That has got to stop. Our local economies have to grow. People are trying to start small businesses. When they come into the community, all they do, it's like a fishbowl. They go around, they drive, and they head back to Inuvik, and they stay in Inuvik. We are trying to make small businesses be able to create jobs and employment and to work together to get that sorted out with our government.

Our housing. The housing issues that we have in our riding, big theme: we have young families that are growing. I had 24 graduates this year in Tuktoyaktuk. Where are they going to go, young families? We have no housing. We have to get CMHC and the federal government onside to get the increases in the housing per community, per capita. We get $32,000 per person per year. Not all of it is being distributed properly. It has to be distributed across the territory. Housing is the biggest concern for me. We have mould. We have people overcrowding. You get water once a week or twice a week in some houses; a family of 10. We have to change. Things have to change. The 19^th Assembly is change. Our housing issues, to make it easier for houses to be built.

Our education. Social passing has to stop. It has a rippling effect right across the territory. It has a rippling affect from K to 12. We have to work with our community DAs to work and get that done. I've been sitting on a DA for the last three years. I've seen how the rippling effect happens, the social passing across the territory.

I always say, "What's good for Yellowknife is good for Nunakput." We provide the courses for the programs that we need for education. We need to have our own social workers, our teachers, our nurses. Those positions need to be filled by our own people. We say we're so good at the start. Let's get them trained up. Then, when they're trained, they can't get hired. That has to stop.

The healthcare system, a big concern in my riding. People are having to leave for medical appointments on a day's notice, sometimes, not even given notice. They should be properly told when they're travelling. It's a big thing, because when you're leaving coastal communities, you have to leave one or two days early. It's the same thing coming back. You're going to one appointment; it's costing you six days of your life. Medical travel from Inuvik to Yellowknife or Edmonton, elders and escorts, that has to get fixed and streamlined so that, when you're calling the Minister, something is going to get done that day, approval.

We shouldn't put our elders in that situation, where they are stressed out from what they're having to deal with already. We're giving them more stress; that's not right. The appointments and the aftercare that we're giving them when they travel for cancer, all these treatments, they have to get properly treated, proper follow-up.

We need to deal with one of the biggest concerns that I have, too, and I have been hearing more and more. We need more programming for men, women, and our youth in our communities, not just Band-Aid solutions. We need a men's night, or a ladies' night; something where they are gathering together, some kind of programming that they could go to, a number that they could call anytime to get help.

Our youth. Our youth are left behind. You never hear anything on youth. For our sporting events, we're lucky in Tuktoyaktuk. You can drive out on the road. You go to try to fly out of the community of Sachs Harbour or Paulatuk, you could probably buy three tickets from Yellowknife to Edmonton with one trip from those communities. Shame on us. We have to fix it. Youth are our future, in our territory.

We need places for treatment, and it's not going to be lip service. The 19^th Assembly has to get treatment for our people in our communities. We need that. We have drug and alcohol addictions, we have stronger drugs coming into the communities, we have to work with that and let the people know, let them know what happens, the side effects that they have to deal with. On-the-land treatment centres, what they had in the 17^th Assembly that we did try, it was just put off to the wayside. "No, we're going to send them south." You can't send them south and think they're going to get fixed when they come home. They have to be fixed; we have to take care of our own people. We need a drug and alcohol centre in the territory.

We need to work with the regional governments for land management and harvesting, for our grandchildren. We will stay connected with our past, and working with our local community governments. That's the biggest one we've been hearing the last couple of days. We have to work with governments, our local governments. They were here first. To support and build solutions and create a working-together, open-handed approach. We need to work with all levels and support them.

I have a lot of issues for Nunakput. I'm here to advocate for my riding, for Nunakput, and I'm here to do the job for the Northwest Territories. It's an honour for me to be here. This is my third term coming up right now. I'm here to get things done, and I look forward to working with all of you, to getting all the issues that we have to work together to get done for our great territory of Northwest Territories.

I'd like to thank my wife for her support. I'm blessed to have you. I just want to say, I always used to have little slogans: live the present, honour the past, create the future. Let this 19^th Assembly be remembered as getting the job done for the people. Thank you.