Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to stand because I can't sit still.
---Laughter
It's a tremendous honour and I'm very humbled by your unanimous support for me. I think it says a lot about the value of our consensus form of government.
---Applause
I can promise you that over the next four years that I will work to ensure you and the people of the Northwest Territories that that support is well placed.
I want to thank my wife and my family for the support that they've given me and the willingness to let me put in those extra hours that are going to be necessary to do this job well.
I also want to thank the people in my constituency who gave me 100 percent support as well, in my election as MLA and also the words of support from them for me to put my name forward for this office.
Leading up to today, I've been working on a speech that was meant to explain to you why I would make a good Premier and was meant to get your support. I've kept a lot of that speech because I still need your support over the next four years. I think we have to work together. I need your support as we move along.
I want to make a positive difference in the Northwest Territories. I think I did as a finance Minister in the 14th Assembly, and now in the 15th Assembly I want to do it as Premier.
To me there's no better place in Canada than the Northwest Territories, and I want to do everything I can to keep it that way. I think we have an opportunity in the Territories to do it right; to do it right for all our people, our aboriginal people, for non-aboriginal people, for everybody who has made this territory home. My children live here, my grandchildren live here, I intend to live here the rest of my life and I want to make sure that I am making a contribution to that.
My original platform in 1999 when I first ran as MLA was about getting things done. That was the title we used, in fact, on our brochures. My vision is of people getting together to discuss, to plan, to negotiate and to decide on a course of action; working together toward common goals and an exciting future.
During these past four years I've learned a lot about successful relationships and working with people. It's a simple rule that I follow and I think it's essential for a functioning consensus system, and that is my open-door policy. It works well for me. It has worked well for me over the last years and I intend to continue with that policy. My office is open to fellow MLAs, to aboriginal organizations, to members of the business community, to employees of our government, to everyone. That's the only way that I can know what the issues are and to understand the problems and begin to try and find solutions together. Yes, it's more time consuming; yes, it's not always the easiest or the fastest or the most convenient way to operate, but it works. These successes I've had over the past four years can be attributed, I believe, to this approach. I will ensure that that approach is the norm up and down the hallway, practiced by all Cabinet Ministers, and I hope extended beyond this building to the government itself.
I want to speak, Mr. Chairman, a bit about the qualities of a leader in the GNWT. I think first and foremost we all have to exhibit qualities of accountability, integrity and honesty. These must be above question. Yes, we have checks and balances and standards of behaviour provided by our codes of practices and codes of conduct and these are necessary, however, we must all conduct ourselves so that we do not find ourselves mired in conflict and questions or confidence as some previous governments have. The costs are just too high. The administrative costs, of course, but more than anything else the cost of our working relationship and the cost of the public's confidence.
I think a leader must be able to develop trust; must be a team builder; must be fair to all people in the Northwest Territories and must be prepared to work hard to make consensus government work; must work well with and be known to aboriginal and municipal leaders and the federal government, as well as our public; must have the ability to engage people in constructive discussion and debate; must be prepared to work long and hard day after day; and, I think most of all, must always be open to suggestions from the electorate.
I see my role as Premier to lead the government with a vision that is developed and supported by the MLAs, a vision that we need to be prepared to modify as time progresses and as we are advised by our partners. As Premier, I'd like to see more involvement by regular Members in setting and managing the agenda of the government. For example, joint MLA/Cabinet committees to review and develop major policies and to implement plans. I'd like to see more operational, more positive relationships between ourselves and Cabinet and the MLAs and the committees that we have.
As critical as I see drawing together all Members, there must be more openness and informal discussion in communities, where local and regional leaders have opportunity to present their views. New northern forums of sorts and mechanisms for working together with the emerging self-governments of municipalities are overdue.
My vision of the Northwest Territories is a place where northerners are healthy, educated and contributing to the betterment of families and communities; where the atmosphere promotes personal and economic opportunities for success; where the environment is respected and protected; where development proceeds with northern control and consent resulting in long-term benefits; where our place in Canada is clearly defined; where our relationship with big, multi-national companies is clear, and clearly our relationship with them has to be one that has a benefit to northern people; where traditional cultures are respected and a government that supports these objectives.
The 15th Assembly is going to face many of the same issues as the 14th did: fiscal pressures; the need to build strong relationships with our partners; delivering our programs and services in the most efficient and effective manner; and moving forward our desire to control our land and resources and our destiny.
We also face unprecedented opportunities in association with things like a natural gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley. I believe that we, as a 15th Assembly, must continue to support these major developments, but only in a way that
brings maximum benefit to the NWT through jobs, contracts and resource revenues. We need to do it our way, not just be swept along by policies by others. However, we also need to put more attention toward smaller and local industries, and more to diversifying our economy as a way of generating wealth in all communities.
As a Member of Cabinet and as finance Minister, transportation Minister and Minister of RWED for a while, I did focus much of my public effort on financial and economic and development-related issues. The fact is though, that when you look at the spending, we did dedicate a lot of money toward our social programs and our social needs. We increased the operational budget by $165 million. We're now going to have to be sure that that money is invested well. The social needs of our people are going to be, in my view, one of the big challenges that we're going to have to pay attention to here as a government.
Along with these increased investments we've made, we also took action in the last government to begin the process of lowering the cost of living. The cost of living, I think, is going to continue to be one of our biggest challenges. We have to find ways of bringing the cost of living into a range where it is reasonable for people. It is very difficult for someone living in poverty or inadequate housing to be able to get excited about some of the big issues we'll deal with like devolution and resource revenue sharing. So I see the challenge of lowering the cost of living as one of our major, major challenges we'll take on.
As Premier, I will continue to expand our efforts to strike the right balance on political evolution, social and economic investments, investments in large and small communities and between investments in prevention and treatment services.
My training, as many of you know, is in education. I came here as an educator and it's education that I strongly believe is the future for northerners. This is the greatest security we can negotiate for our people and help them to achieve.
The increased participation of northerners in our current economic opportunities is great today. Having a skill, a trade, a diploma, a degree will be for the long term. Once someone has a certificate or a degree, no one can ever take it away from them. It is my view that we must continue to direct our resources towards ensuring our residents are prepared to take on the job and the benefits of development. We often say our people are our most valued resources. As MLAs, we will hear this many times. We need to continue to put actions to these words and perhaps look at focusing our effort as a government by, I believe on one hand, putting a lot of emphasis on early childhood and kindergarten to Grade 12 and, on the other hand, doing what is required to ensure our adult population has the opportunities to take on the training and jobs that are there. We will have to do that in partnership with non-government organizations. So often we have not taken advantage of those organizations that have provided a lot of services for us. We have not taken advantage of them in a way that we should be, and working with them as our partners. We need to work with the private sector in doing that as well. The private sector delivers some of the best training we have for adults in the Territories. We must work together.
Too many of our residents are struggling with various addictions and lifestyle choices that adversely affect their lives, those of their families and their communities. There's a need for government to help people take more personal responsibility. The government should not be overly intrusive in people's lives. Government is there to share resources fairly and provide help and safety nets, but it cannot and should not evade all aspects of people's lives. A key principle in our social agenda should be to assist people, to be independent and responsible for themselves and their families. We have to take steps to become healthy individuals and family units. Wherever people are struggling to exercise their obligations as husbands, wives and parents, we need to be prepared to support them and their community leaders. While support for those who are struggling is an obligation for us, respecting individual rights as consenting, capable adults is also a prerequisite for a self-sufficient, prosperous society.
Our environment is precious. We live in a very fragile part of the world and we need to do everything we can to protect our environment. Not only must we do our part, but we also have to convince the federal government that the cleanup of hazardous sites and particularly old mines is urgent.
As well, we have to be continually vigilant in ensuring efficient and effective environmental assessments of current and future projects at arm's length from political interference.
I would like to concentrate on diversifying the benefit of major development that we have now and will have in the future. Obviously we cannot have a mine or a gas pipeline beside each community nor do we want that, but we can do more to support our small communities and our small businesses.
I am particularly interested in the potential of tourism which can be integrated and supportive of traditional economies and lifestyles. Strong communities and strong people go together. We cannot have one without the other.
As I mentioned earlier, there's a need to develop more structured forums or working in cooperation with other governments and stakeholders, aboriginal, municipal, federal, provincial, territorial and with the non-governmental sector. We've had some good examples and I hope we can continue with them. In the private sector, the business coalition is a good example of a very strong partnership that has resulted in an additional $80 million for infrastructure, municipal and transportation, that Minister Rock recently announced. This group can also take a lot of credit for increasing our profile in the provinces by demonstrating that the Northwest Territories is a major player in the future economy of Canada, not just a source of wealth for someone else. It is a big piece of Canada.
Another successful partnership we've developed is with the community of Fort Providence and the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation. Together we are presuming a dream of being able to cross the Mackenzie River at any time of the year, any month. Together, we are going to make this a reality. Those are two good examples.
My vision of the North is strong communities. One way to have strong communities is to ensure people can afford to live there. We do need a less expensive, cleaner source of energy. A lot of work has been done on an energy strategy. A lot of preliminary work has been done looking at a hydro potential. I think there is some room to continue looking at that.
I know the people in the corporations in Tulita, Deline and the Akaitcho people and the NWT Metis are working in partnership with the Power Corporation, as we speak, in doing some of that preliminary work. There are some good recommendations on the energy strategy on cleaner energy as well. Clearly, energy is going to drive the economy in the small communities unless we take on the challenge of finding a less expensive and cleaner way of doing it. Then I think we will continue to see people moving their businesses from small communities into larger centres and I don't think any of us want to see that. To me, the challenge of lower cost, more efficient, cleaner energy that we have control over the price on is a major challenge that we have to take a look at. I can assure you though that as much as I support hydro development, there will be no hydro development happen on anybody's traditional land unless they are in support of it. These are a few examples of successful partnerships with aboriginal corporations, and it shows my commitment of what our government's commitment to cooperation and partnership should be.
We also need to support the early finalization of aboriginal claims and self-government negotiations. Time frames and processes for settlement of outstanding claims must be set and adhered to by all governments involved. We need to embrace power sharing with Dene, Inuvialuit and Metis governments and be willing to embark on new ways of doing business.
Addressing our fiscal challenge is a reality. Finding new ways to increase revenues is a constant challenge in which we had some positive movement in the last government. We still have the same challenge though. While we do get more revenues, we still find the situation where our expenditure demands are outstripping sustained revenue growth. The bottom line to me is that unless we have economic self- sufficiency, we will not have political independence nor the means to overcome our health and social challenges.
In short, we need to obtain a better fiscal balance with the federal government, which includes clarification of our role in this Canadian Confederation, a better formula deal, better access to resource revenues and fairer access to federal programs. On a few occasions, Paul Martin, as federal finance Minister, came to our support in the last government because of persuasive arguments we put forward. I think one of the strongest arguments we put forward is what is good for the North is good for Canada. As soon as possible, I intend to meet with the Prime Minister and the Minister of DIAND to continue that dialogue and to begin the process of developing a very clear strategy to gain federal support for aboriginal governments and our government to resolve the devolution and resource revenue issues. Previous governments of the Northwest Territories have been working on devolution for over 17 years. It's not a clear, easy exercise, but I think our government has to put a time frame on it, put a commitment to it and if it means working until midnight every night to do it, we have to make a commitment to get this one resolved.
All of Canada stands to gain greatly or to lose badly by mining and oil and gas development in the Northwest Territories. We need to continue to see provincial support for our political, economic and fiscal arguments. Good progress has been made in the 14th Assembly in getting our message out to the rest of Canada and to the international community.
I want to hit the road running, as well as meeting with Prime Minister Martin who will strengthen our support from the other provinces and territories and the national and international business community.
I would like to make just a few points on the expenditure side, as well. I continue to believe that it's not time to reduce spending on investments in people and in infrastructure when these investments can show us return. This was my fiscal strategy over the last four years and I believe it has shown results and I believe it is still true. However, reassessing and reconfiguring how we deliver our services by rationalizing those that are least affected is a process governments must not shy away from. We need to be able to tell whether increased expenditures have resulted in positive changes. This week we have received many options to address these issues that we are facing. We have them all in hand. We need to set a vision for the 15th Assembly and then we need to select those recommendations that best fit our agenda. We have no time to spend studying the problems. It's time for us to take action on these.
Finally, let me reinforce the need to build trust and a positive working relationship as 19 MLAs. We need to make consensus government work. We can make it work and work very well. There's a time and place to have a debate on the merits of our style of government, how we select the Speaker, the Premier, Cabinet and committee Chairs. I believe that can wait until we have an electoral review later in the life of this government. Right now, we have to get to work on more specific ways we can work together better to address issues we face and try to develop an approach to benefit the people we represent.
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, my previous approach to communicate and dialogue with Members here and groups and individuals outside these walls, I know that those I have worked with before will agree and those who I have to develop a working relationship with now will soon find out that the open-door policy is my style. It will not change and I would like to see it practised by all Members of Cabinet and our government.
I was asked shortly after I put my name forward and indicated my intention to seek the position of Premier, why I would want to do this job. I have thought about it a lot and come back to the same place in my mind time and time again. Like you, I care. I care about people, first and foremost. I care about the land and its importance to people who live here. I care about the future and the future of our children. I care about everybody's ability to earn a good living and live in decent housing. I care about those who are looking for help in overcoming their addictions, about a good education system and a health system we can rely on, about equality for our minority groups and having violence-free homes. I care about our place in the rest of Canada. Mr. Chairman, I am confident that the people of the Northwest Territories that we represent will be well-served by the 15th Legislative Assembly. Thank you.
---Applause