Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried unanimously.

---Carried

We have, according to the agenda, item 9, which is the election of the Premier. Do we have any other concerns that you wish to discuss prior to the process? This starts off, first of all, with a nomination from the floor of who you wish to run for Premier. Once the nomination has been done and there are no further nominations, Iwill declare that the nominations are closed. We will give each candidate 20 minutes to make their speech, and then we will have the election. Do we have any nominations? Mr. Enuaraq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to nominate the honourable Jane Groenewegen, the Member for Hay River, for the position of Premier. If you would allow me to try again, Iwill.

Mr. Enuaraq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to nominate Jane Groenewegen, the Member for Hay River, for the position of Premier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Enuaraq. The honourable Member for Hay River, do you accept the nomination?

Thank you. Do we have any other nominations? Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish to nominate Don Morin, the Member for Tu Nedhe, for the position of Premier.

Thank you. Does the Member for Tu Nedhe accept the nomination?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do accept it and I would like to thank the Member for Yellowknife North, Mr. Roy Erasmus, for nominating me.

Do we have any other nominations? There are no further nominations. I declare the nominations closed. By way of rules, we have Jane Groenewegen for Hay River and we have Mr. Don Morin for Tu Nedhe as candidates for the position of Premier.

Each candidate is permitted to make a 20-minute speech. The speech will be made in alphabetical order. I will ask Mrs. Groenewegen to start her speech. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thanks, Mrs. Groenewegen. Next is Mr. Morin. You have 20 minutes, Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to start off by thanking my wife, Gladys, and my family for their support over the past eight years in this job. Hopefully, she'll continue to support me. I would also like to thank my constituents who voted me back in on October 16th. I would like to thank the people of Fort Resolution and Lutsel K'e, my riding of Tu Nedhe, for their support. I would also like to congratulate all Members here on getting elected to this House, those who are re-elected and those who are elected for the first time. I look forward to working with you in the next four years.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to dwell on the accomplishments of Ministers in our previous government; instead, I want to talk about the Premier's job, what it should be, what I can do and what I have to offer. Then I want to talk about the enormous challenges that are lying ahead for all of us over the life of the 13th Assembly.

Over the past several weeks, I've been thinking about the role of Premier. First and foremost, I believe that the Premier has to be more than a leader. It's very key that the Premier has to be a team builder. That's very key. That came out of our Caucus and our meetings in back rooms; we want to work as a team. The Premier has to be prepared to listen and to hear all the other Members of this Legislative Assembly. A one-man, one-way approach won't get this job done. We have to work together.

Those of you who have worked with me in the past will already know that that's always been my approach. As a Minister and as an MLA I have always had the approach that my door is open. You can come and talk to me anytime you want. That won't change if you elect me as your Premier.

Leading a team includes making sure that we support each other and that we treat each other with respect. We simply can't afford in this term of the Legislative Assembly to have the bickering and the fighting that we had in the previous Legislative Assembly. It takes too much energy, it wastes too much time and it also wastes money. I think it costs $16,000 a day to run this House. So when we come here, let's come here with the attitude of working together and getting the job done for the people we represent. We also have to make sure that we achieve a closer relationship with federal Ministers and both our MPs. As your Premier, I'll make sure that we invite whatever Cabinet Ministers we need to meet with us, as well as our MPs. It's very clear: They're in Ottawa, we need them there, we need to support them and have them support us. Never again do I want to hear a federal Cabinet Minister who says he doesn't know who to talk to in the Northwest Territories. If you elect me as your Premier I will personally phone Ron Irwin the Minister of Indian Affairs and, let me assure you, when I finish talking to him he'll know who to talk to in the Northwest Territories.

We have to do a better job of including the community. The leadership and decision-making, we have to do more. We have to do more than just consult and talk to our communities, we have to empower our communities to make their own decisions. We have to work with our communities to solve their own problems. I've always been committed to that and I will continue to be committed to that. We have to have a better and closer working relationship with our chiefs, our mayors, our hamlet councils and we all have to work together, that has been very clear. We don't have the luxury or the money to be infighting.

The Premier has to be a team leader here at home. The Premier also has to represent the interests of all northerners on the national stage. I know what it takes to do that. As the Minister of Housing, I attended three federal/provincial meetings. I made sure every time we attended that they knew the Northwest Territories was there. In the final communique that came out of those meetings, it always talked about the Northwest Territories.

As the Minister of Housing, I was appointed a task force with my counterparts from Saskatchewan and Newfoundland to establish a federal rural and remote program. Not only did we establish a new program, but we came home with 60 per cent of the dollars; that was over $10 million.

At the same time, the Premier should never be one who walks around and thinks that I'm too good or aloof to communicate with everybody. He has to make every effort to ensure that he communicates with everybody. As your Premier, I will make sure that I'm in your communities and I'll make every effort to be there when you request me to be there, within a reasonable time frame. That's not just politics, that's common sense. How can a person represent you or understand you unless he knows your communities, unless he understands your community problem, so that's very, very important.

I believe that the next Premier should be every bit as comfortable in the pool hall in Yellowknife or a fish plant in Pangnirtung or in a tent near Whati as he is at the First Ministers' table in Ottawa. The grassroots connections are going to be absolutely necessary over the next several years, Mr. Chairman, because there is no underestimating the demands that lie ahead of us. For me, one of the greatest challenges lies in our education system. We have to educate our people. Frankly, when I see the state of our current education system, I recognize we have not done as well as we should have. We need to re-examine the ways we are doing things. Forty five per cent of the Inuit population and 37 per cent of the Dene have less than grade 9; 0.3 per cent of the Inuit population and 0.9 per cent of the Dene population are university educated. This is despite the Education budget that has crept up $270 million and has been over $200 million for the last four years. Make no mistake about this; our failures in education are not due to the hard-working community teachers, especially the northerners we train through the TEP program. This is not the fault of the local education societies either. They spend hours, they volunteer their time working for the people. We're failing because the money isn't getting into the classroom. There is too much bureaucracy in the divisional boards and in the department, and I think that goes for just about every government department we have. The money is not getting from us to the community. We have to·· and that's our job •• get the money to the community in the straightest and quickest way possible.

As your Premier, I will immediately set a priority on reshaping our educational framework. We have to build on the successes we've achieved in our education system, like the Inuktitut language instruction in Nunavut. We have to emphasize community solutions and we have to support our community decisions. Clearly, we also have to take a hard look at the administration of the college system and ask ourselves whether the NWT taxpayers are getting the best value for their dollars that are being spent. Educating our people; that's one of the challenges, but there are others.

We all know the health and social programs will continue to plague the northern communities over the life of this Assembly. We need to continue with the zero tolerance approach to violence. We're leading the country, we should continue with that principle. But we also need to question our spending priorities in the social programs. We're spendiing approximately $80,000 a year to house an inmate, yet we're only spending $$18,000 a year to education a child. Is that right? I don't think so.

What we should be focusing on and I've always believed, without question, the fundamental cause of our social problem lies with alcohol and drug abuse. It's no secret that dealing with the alcohol-related crimes and social problems costs this government tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and the human cost is even greater. We need to deal with the abuse of alcohol and drugs. As your Premier, I will make sure this happens. Reforming the liquor laws has to be a priority, but we also have to make sure that we have preventive programs, programs that are planned and implemented by the community. We need to make our children feel better about themselves. But let's not forget the solutions to our social problems have to go beyond the government programs. The most important thing is we need jobs. We need jobs at the community level.

I can remember, back when I was I think around 14 or 15 years old, when I got one of my first jobs from James Wright in Hay River, unloading boxcars. Twenty-seven boxcars came in every week. Fourteen hundred bags of mud for the Beaufort came in. We unloaded it all by hand. We were paid about $1.65 an hour, but it taught me to work. It made me feel good. It was my money. It gave me self-pride, too.

That's what our young people need. Learning the value of work and learning to work for what you get is very key. We can sober all the people up. We can educate them all. We can make them all healthy. But if there are no jobs, none of that will do any good; so that is very, very key.

In 1993, while I was a Minister, we launched, with the support my Cabinet colleagues and the Members of this Legislative Assembly, the building and learning strategy. The result has been a higher level of community participation in the jobs in the northern construction industry.

The northern manufacturers initiative was implemented in 1993, once again with the support of the Members of the Legislative Assembly and the support of my Cabinet colleagues. Buying in the North replaced 20 per cent of the Housing Corporation. We don't have to buy those things in the South any more. That included windows, doors, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, fuel tanks and stands, screw jacks, roof trusses, tub surrounds and sewage and water tanks. We used to buy all these materials from the South. Now we have northerners supplying northerners, and I would continue, as your Premier, to support those types of initiatives.

Seventy jobs were created from that, and that's 70 jobs that we did not have four years ago in the Northwest Territories. We need a lot more activity like this, and hopefully other Members will come up with some ideas on how we can replace what we are buying in the south. We have to stop the leakage to the south.

We need to support our apprenticeship programs. We need to support our Building and Learning Strategy, and we also have to support our teachers, social workers and our training programs.

We know that there is a huge mineral industry out there, and there are huge spin-offs that we can get from that. I will work hard to bring the Northern Accord back home, but I will do it with our aboriginal people as our partners, and we will bring it home where it belongs so it will give us some legislative power; it will give us the oomph we need to encourage the training of northerners by the mining companies or in the oilfields. That is very, very important. I believe that we should start immediately talking to the mine owners to implement training programs for our people. At least then our people are replacing those who are coming in from the south right now.

Our mining, fire and safety inspectors should be northern; the people who work in the supply industry should be northern; crews on mineral exploration projects should be northern; and especially the people who work in the government, especially the people who work for us should be northern people.

We need to continue to support the renewable resources sector, not only because it is part of our heritage and who we are, but also because it holds promise for employment in forestry, food production and tourism.

People are saying our economy is flat. They say we have to do something about the deficit. Some people say that is our toughest challenge. But make no mistake; we do have to balance the budget, and that is what the Deficit Elimination Act says we have to do. How do we do it? Very key -- we do that by working together, by strategizing and by coming up with ideas as a team. Every one of us has ideas. There are 24 of us here, and if we come up with our ideas and work together, I am sure we can overcome that problem.

I have some ideas of my own. We can find dollars by restructuring the government departments and removing the duplication, and also changing the programs so that we can get a better bang for our dollar. But the key here is that every Member of this house has good ideas and we have to all work together, including our communities.

People also point out that the division of the NWT is one of our biggest challenges. I remember, during the election campaign, one of my opponents came to a candidates' forum, and he went on that we can't afford division and how the process has to be stopped or delayed. After he finished talking, I stood up, because I was speaking after him , and I basically said to the people that I thought the guy was dreaming, dreaming in technicolour. I believe that the people of Nunavut have every right to govern themselves. Make no mistake. Division is a reality. Nunavut will happen in 1999. What we have to do is ensure that it happens fairly and that it happens so that it can make the best use of the dollar. We have to ensure, as the Premier, that the federal government lives up to its moral, political and financial obligations. That's what our job is. There is no question in anyone's mind. Nunavut is going to happen. It's law, and it's going to happen, like I said earlier, in 1999.

We need to prepare for Nunavut. We need to plan for the delivery of government services in two new jurisdictions. But we also need to develop our western constitution , not just by throwing money at the constitutional process, but by setting specific goals and firm timetables and then working together to meet them. ·People have to see the progress being made. For an example, why don't we come up with a name by April 1, 1996? How about that for a goal? Then let's try to achieve that. At least then our people will see we are making progress.

There are other constitutional issues. Like it or not, we are going to be faced for a long time with the question of national unity. We have to remember that it is through our historic links with Quebec, through our shared borders, through our medical services, transportation and resupply routes and through family connections in the Eastern Arctic that go back for centuries, that we are already in a position to be key players in the sovereignty debate.

At the same time, we cannot let ourselves nor the Canadian agenda get kidnapped by this single issue. There are too many other challenges that must be settled on the national front. When it comes to federal policies on aboriginal self- government, firearms legislation, the devolution of programs and the building of a new federalism, we have to do more than just participate; we have to offer leadership.

My friends, the leadership begins right here in this House. Very key, like my good friend Jane said, we have to work together. We have to draw on the values we learned from our families, lessons that we learned about sharing and respecting each other, and we have to draw on the principles outlined in our own code of conduct.

You know, the code means a lot to me. It says I have accepted responsibility to serve the people. It says that I seek wisdom, strength, courage, honesty in serving the people of the north, both those who have built our past and those who we enforce the federal government's obligations morally, politically and financially. We have to drive that process and work together with the Members of this Assembly to achieve that. Thank you.

Thank you. Mrs. Groenewegen.

are shaping our future. It says that we have to work together

Mr. Oates and then Mrs. Thompson.

your Premier is be the team leader. What I want to do is make sure the team functions and we do the best job possible for northerners. That is what I have to offer to you today. Thank you very much.

---Applause

Thank you. I would ask that we take a break but before we do that, by way of process, all the Members are allowed to ask four questions each to each candidate. There is no supplementary. If you ask one question and three supplementary, it's four questions. Okay? Even though sometimes it may not be on record like that, but if you said "what'', that is a question. If you say, what's that, that is a question, or if you say, is that so, that is a question, or, come again, that is a question.

---Laughter

So even though maybe things aren't recorded, if you said it in the House and I heard it, that is your question. At the same time, I would like to ask the candidates to be clear when they respond to the questions. If it isn't clear and a Member has to say those things, I have the option to say you weren't clear and the Member is entitled to that extra question. So we will take a 10-minute break. Think about your questions. Mahsi.

---SHORT RECESS

The committee will come back to order. Before we broke, I explained the process to Members. So we aren't asking questions based on alphabetical order. The floor is now open for questions to candidates. Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This question will be for both candidates. What will you do as Premier to keep the discussion and the division timetable on schedule?

I will ask Mr. Morin to respond first.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said in my speech, I believe that it is very important that we have Nunavut and that we have that in 1999. I believe it is very important that