Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank my colleague, Paul Delorey, for the nomination. I'd also like to thank my family for their continued support and my constituents for having the faith and trust in me to send me back to this very important institution. It certainly was both a surprise, but an honour to be acclaimed.

Also, Mr. Krutko, I'd like to congratulate you on your election to the position of Speaker. You certainly provide a very important service to this Assembly. I've watched you for the past four years with admiration as you've consistently represented your constituency with passion, with determination, and I know that anybody who's prepared to put their name forward for the position of Cabinet had better be prepared to see you camped out in their office insisting that your constituents get a fair shake.

Also, I should congratulate our Premier-elect, Joe Handley. I've had the experience of working with him for the past few years now and I'm absolutely impressed. I know that he brings the type of leadership qualities we require to this job. Maybe the thing I'm most impressed about is his ability and desire to be a consensus builder. In our forum and style of government, that's absolutely critical. There can be no lone wolves and I believe that Joe Handley takes this to heart.

If I'm going to ask for your support here today, which I am, and if you're going to consider putting an ‘X' by my name you need to know a few things that I consider important. You need to know what I believe is the future for this government and I'd like to start with a few comments about our consensus style of government.

Four years ago when I was elected to this institution, I believed that somehow there was a need for us to throw off the shackles of consensus government and move to what I perceived at that point as a more mature style of government. I'm happy to say that I was absolutely wrong at that time. I've come to learn this. I've had the pleasure and the experience, the ability to talk to a number of MPs and a number of other MLAs from other jurisdictions and they're envious of the system and the cooperation and the work that we're able to do here; regular Member input.

Of course, for the past four years I've been a regular Member and I know that my colleagues and I have made a difference. I know that our input in the budget process is something that you don't see in partisan politics. You don't have the budget dropped on you on budget day with no ability to make change and only the ability to gripe and moan for four years. We make significant changes here. I point to things, and my colleagues who were with me will remember that we were able and successful in channeling more money into student support, moving money from another area that we saw as less important to one that we saw as vital. The government, seeing that we had the support of all the Members, was willing and able to make that decision that I think was very important.

There have been a lot of detractors who've spoken about consensus government and the lack of accountability. I would ask you all to think and the public to think about the fact that we have a perpetual minority government, which is something that I consider very healthy. I wonder how accountable an opposition can hold a government in a province like Alberta with only a very few number of opposition seats.

It also allows our committee structure to be one that's very open and allows for policy development by regular Members. They have to be involved. There have to be white papers floated by our government through committees to get their input. Our style allows this. It's simply about having a commitment and a belief that this is important enough to do.

I'd like to say a couple of things about self-government because over the past four years I've also come to learn a great deal, a lot more about the importance of self- government and the importance of recognizing the aspirations and dreams of aboriginal governments. Many aboriginal leaders, I think all aboriginal leaders, have said that the GNWT, they believe, is dragging its feet and has certainly been a roadblock in getting progress and movement forward. I think that while some of us at times may feel that this is not always the case, I think we'd better recognize that where there's smoke, there's fire. And to do otherwise would simply be to bury our heads in the sand.

There is a lot of fear about what self-government means and I think we have an obligation to engage in an information campaign to allay those fears. Premier Kakfwi -- for anybody who was at Jim Antoine's going away last night -- in a song spoke about how there will always be people who promote fear. I think it's our job, as Members of this government, to allay those fears. It's not about loss of control for this government, it's not about a fixed-sum game. It's more control for all northerners. If we're going to go to the federal government and make the case that we need control at this level and we need the ability to determine where we'll go as a government and as a people, then we have to recognize the same for aboriginal governments. Clearly, we have a natural ally in our battle to wrest control from Ottawa and it's important that we work in partnership.

But trust must be earned. It's not something that we can assume. We have to go out everyday and conduct ourselves and build this trust and I believe it's not enough anymore for this government to simply attend summer assemblies, send an entourage and say nice things. It's going to be about tangible progress. It's going to be about real work getting done and real meaningful involvement. We need action on these partnerships, not just words.

There is a common ground we can find. We have mutual interests. Those mutual interests are about improving people's lives in the Northwest Territories. It's what we all want and I think we recognize that.

As I was going door to door in this campaign, which was cut short, I did get a chance to go around and talk to folks after the acclamation. There was a lot of discussion about economic development versus social program development. There was a sense that this government in the past four years had spent a lot of time focusing on economic development and not so much on social programs. I think the budget wouldn't bear that out and I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Clearly we need jobs. We need our people employed because people who are gainfully employed will have less reliance on social programs. Industry will create the types of revenues and the types of taxes that will allow us to pay for social programs. After all, that's the business we're in. It's about taking care of our people and making a tangible difference in their lives.

We know we need a diversified economy. We know we have to focus more on education. Premier Handley spoke of this and talked about the future and the success of our people being dependent on education. Our graduation rates are slipping. It is on us to find out why and to reverse that trend. We need to make sure we are training our people to take full advantage of the jobs that are here in the North instead of watching jobs fly over our heads and fly south.

Literacy is an issue that we need to tackle wholeheartedly. It's not just about ensuring people can be gainfully employed. It's about meaningful lives. It's about citizenship. It's about participating fully. We owe that to our people. We owe them a commitment to literacy and numeracy.

I should say just a couple of things about community health. We recognize our people have to make healthier choices, but we have to be there to support that. If we're going to build a sustainable health care system here in the North it's going to mean some difficult choices. I think we set out on the right foot in the last government with a number of the steps that we did take. I'm particularly proud of the work that we were able to do to enable nurse practitioners and midwives to practice. If you want to talk about reduction in costs, never mind the client service and the added benefit, there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be birthing services in all of our communities. It's crazy to think that we need to uproot women, families and their children to come to one of the regional centres to give birth. That is not the way the most meaningful experience in people's lives should take place.

We know we have fiscal challenges that will be on us to tackle those. Those are ongoing and I think that if we work together as 19 Members and acknowledge that leadership will be about the 19 of us and we expand and ensure that Cabinet takes an approach that allows for meaningful input from regular Members, then we have a chance in this regard.

I should say a couple of things just about some of the personal attributes that I think are important for a leadership position. Obviously we've mentioned honesty, integrity and work ethic. Anybody who puts their name forward to be a Cabinet Minister in a government run by Joe Handley had better be prepared to do some work. Of course, I was a little nervous to hear Joe say he was ready to take on the extra hours that would be required to be Premier. He sets the bar very high and I'm prepared to meet that challenge and I think that's something important for all of you to know. I have a commitment to this job. I will continue that.

Lastly, I'd like to say that I believe how I conduct myself, both in my working life and in my personal life, reflects on all of you, as does your conduct reflect on me. I think that's something very important. I want you to know that I absolutely won't let you down in this regard. I would like to ask you for your support here today. Thank you.

---Applause