Thank you, Madam Chair. First and foremost, I'd like to thank the voters of Inuvik for putting their trust in me, Inuvik Boot Lake. It's truly appreciated. My campaign team and the people who worked tirelessly and contributed to my election campaign, again thank you very much. My family for their tireless support. Without them I'd like to -- I certainly wouldn't be here representing Inuvik today.

Thank you to the outgoing Members. The 19th Assembly was plagued with some unprecedented issues that certainly you would not expect - the pandemic, the awful fires, the floods - and I know that wasn't an easy task and certainly, you know, I appreciate their courage and appreciate them putting their names forward to represent their territory. And thank you to the current Members, my 18 other colleagues here for the past week for sharing your thoughts for the open and honest dialogue. It's certainly appreciated. There are obviously are many of the same issue that face us, each region, and it was encouraging to have that dialogue and hear from everyone.

And finally, thank you to the staff of the Assembly, Madam Chair, the team, their patience. I know they're super busy right now, and we certainly appreciate their patience as we onboard and settle into our roles here at the Assembly. So thank you very much.

Campaigning is certainly a humbling experience. It's also a great way to learn and appreciate the many hard working people, the businesses, the Indigenous governments, community governments, and the non-government organizations in our community. You appreciate what makes our community tick. And going door to door and speaking to people is very humbling and also very educational. I would need likely more than ten minutes to hit every topic and every concern and every priority that was brought to my attention as I did campaign, but I will highlight some. And rest assured, as we move forward with our work, all the issues that were brought to my attention will be brought into this Chamber as well.

When I met with the Indigenous leadership in my region, the governments, it was clear we needed a different approach. We need that whole-of-community approach, and those who followed my campaign will know that I use that term quite frequently as I went door to door and as we debated. We need to ask the Indigenous governments how is the relationship, what's working, and what's not. And I think that's important. How can we as a government ensure that we are working with the Indigenous governments in a way that respects both and ensures we are working shoulder to shoulder providing the most we can for all our residents.

For far too long, divisive politics have made it so that our regions have not been able to take advantage of the opportunities that can come from working together. It's time for us to come together and work for our collective interests. As a whole of community, we are greater than the sum of our parts. We can address the needs of families. We can start to bring economic strength back to our regions. There are many priorities that will require significant work but none of them are possible without first agreeing to listen to each other and to working together. With the collective efforts of the federal government, the Indigenous governments, and the territorial government, we can ensure the prosperity of our regions and the well-being of our residents.

I spoke to many people in my riding that work in the health and wellness sector of our government, and the message was clear. The current model for health care delivery in our region does need some significant improvement. Increasing cost of living in our region have put an even more stress on an already overworked and under-resourced system. Frontline staff, public health workers, nurses, administrators, and all the wonderfully talented people who deliver health services in Inuvik know well the stresses our system was under. Medical travel has been an incredible challenge in our region. We must ensure that health professionals living here are given an opportunity to assist and inform our government on how we can improve our health care delivery. By engaging those on the front lines, we can better understand how we work to make these improvements. That goes throughout each department. It's important that we listen; we listen to the people that are actually delivering our programs. Those are the people that see the issues and can make recommendations on how we as a government can change policy, legislation to ensure that we are being as effective as we possibly can.

I met with educators and education staff during my campaign. To be sure, we have some excellent educators in our community but we must take the action necessary to address the challenge in recruiting and retaining teachers in our region. We need to bring back those who have left our community to pursue education elsewhere so they can work, live, and educate at home. Increasing cost of living in our region have meant that it's become harder and harder for some of our best and brightest in our community. A lack of meaningful access to programs and services for kids has also made it harder to keep people in our community. We must do more to retain the talent we have and to enrich the young talent that is already here. Many young people in our communities thrive when given the opportunity, but in many cases the opportunities are just too few and far between. Access to better programs and services, participation in education reform initiatives are but a few pieces in the largest constellation of initiatives necessary to create a made-in-Inuvik model, built for and by those who call Inuvik home. I am hopeful that with the new leadership, these initiatives can be implemented and begin to allow us to grow the wonderful educators who live and call Inuvik home.

I also spoke to many business owners during my campaign. And, you know, the message was there's no one industry that can solely be relied on. We must work together to ensure major infrastructure projects are procured and completed regionally. And that goes for all regions throughout the Northwest Territories. We must ensure that we have training for our younger workforce to be engaged and given opportunities to succeed at home and not have to leave our territory to find that work. We have to ensure that we keep a focus on the economy and work with our industry and small business partners to ensure we are always thinking strategically and looking for innovative solutions to growing and keeping our economy robust.

One of the biggest and likely the, I guess most talked about when I'm standing in someone's doorway or if I'm in having a coffee with them, Inuvik, like many other communities in the North, is facing a serious addictions crisis. I spoke with residents in their home that were suffering from addiction, literally knocking on their door and they're telling me, Denny, I need help. It was heartbreaking. We must come together to address this issue.

In speaking with residents, both in the professional field and people in their homes that are being affected by this, the answer's likely in three phase. Certainly we need a treatment centre of some sort, either a treatment or an aftercare centre. We need support for people when they have this treatment, that they come back to the communities. I had a young lady that came to our forum who was struggling with addiction. She comes back to the community. Those wounds have been opened. She's gotten -- she's seeked and gotten the help she's needed. Now she's back in the community, and there's just no support there for her to continue that journey to heal and to be free of this.

You know, the other piece on this is the -- obviously the enforcement. We need to make sure we are working with our enforcement agencies to make sure we are tackling this problem at its root core. We need to ensure they have the tools necessary to do what they need to do. I hear all the time from my residents saying why aren't we doing more? You know, we know where they're getting these drugs. We know where it is in our community, so why aren't we doing more? So we need to look at what we can do as a government to make sure we're giving law enforcement the tools to do that.

The other piece to that is the economy. If people are working, we need to create robust economies. As I said, if people are working they're healthy, they're happy, they're feeding their families, they're putting a roof over their family's heads, they're more likely to make healthy choices and, you know, a better chance of getting free from the addiction.

Our region, as other regions have, in some ways have lost their voice. We haven't had a regional director in our community for four years. This is an integral role in each region. This is the person that reports indirectly to Cabinet, reports indirectly to the Premier's office, and brings the departments together in our region. That position has been sorrily missed. I've heard from our Indigenous leadership. I've heard from others in our community. We need to ensure that we're bringing that position back to Inuvik. There's other senior positions as well that I know we have lost over the past four years, and we need to make sure that there is still some autonomy made for the regions so they can make decisions on their own.

Housing obviously was a big issue that was brought up during my door-to-door campaign. Again, as I heard Members speak earlier, not just social housing, which we know there's a huge need where the Indigenous governments in our region have taken the lead on that, and they've been doing a lot of work through their federal housing initiative funding to get this -- some homes completed, but we need housing for all. We need housing for professionals. We need housing for people that want to move here and make the North their home.

Childcare obviously is always a concern. We need to make sure that we're supporting the people that go to work so others can go to work. We need to make sure that we have childcare that's accessible, and we have -- you know, we have that ability to provide those services in each community. When I was with the Town of Inuvik as mayor, we did a survey and the two questions -- the top two questions were asked for people looking to move to our region was whether or not we had childcare and whether or not we had a pool. So obviously childcare is always on the top of people's minds.

More important than identifying the big issues, though, identifying the solutions to these issues. And the solution to all of those starts with us all working together. When we focus on services and opportunities for children, we must do that as a collective. When we attempt to address significant deficit left to us by the previous government, we must all work together to set clear priorities. When we look to revitalize small businesses in the region, we must look how governments can collaborate. The federal government, the Indigenous governments, and the territorial government have been greater than the sum of our parts. If we can work collaboratively, we could work together. If we can work in true partnership, then we can ensure that each resident finds a voice and that the biggest issues can start to be truly fixed.

During my campaign, I was constantly reminded of the vibrancy, creativity, passion, and intelligence of our communities. My commitment to the people of Inuvik was incredibly high at the start of the campaign and was only elevated in the intervening weeks. I am so proud to call Inuvik home, and I want to generally thank all of you who have invited me into your homes, showed me our passion, put your support in me, and I will do my best to make Inuvik proud as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.