Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It gives me great privilege to be representing Inuvik Twin Lakes in the 15th Assembly and I want to thank especially those hard workers who have worked on my behalf on my campaign. I realize there's a lot of work and effort put into everyone's campaigns and I wish to congratulate yourself on Speaker-elect, as well as the Premier-acclaimed.

I had the privilege of working with the Premier-acclaimed in the last Assembly and I thought I had conformed to the very same principles in that I had an open-door policy as well. It served the people of the Northwest Territories very well in various capacities as a portfolio Minister that I served in.

Again, I want to articulate very clearly to my colleagues here that I will continue to work on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories, whether it's in my riding of Inuvik Twin Lakes or any other riding. I exemplified in my last term that I travelled into the communities 80 plus times, meeting face- to-face with various community leaders, business leaders and then conveying back to my colleagues -- not only in the Assembly, but also in the Cabinet -- the importance that they had in trying to drive the process. I feel that I made a concerted effort to represent their wishes, and hopefully we had come to some conclusive results that benefited all people of the Northwest Territories.

I will continue to pursue that very commitment through that very commitment if you do elect me as a Cabinet Minister again. I believe I'm a strong supporter of progress. My riding in my district had developed a strong and important relationship with industry. We also continue to support the ongoing traditional economies. There is more work to do, as the Premier-acclaimed stated earlier. We must continue to pursue those very objectives through this 15th Assembly.

It goes beyond that and I had developed a very strong position paper that was developed not only by myself as the leader of Inuvik Twin Lakes, but by those who supported my ongoing ambitions. It's very bold, I must admit, but that's the type of leadership Inuvik Twin Lakes and the Inuvik region requires of myself as a leader, as an elected leader.

I'll continue to work, as well, to bring fresh new things into this 15th Assembly. As well, I expect us to try to influence change, as the Premier-acclaimed has stated, from all levels. I work very strongly, and if I may use some examples, with my federal Justice Minister colleague in trying to deal with the gun legislation. First, particularly in the area of prosecution, I followed it up after several advocacy groups came forward and I met with the Solicitor General trying to see how we can work together in administering the gun legislation because of the amount of difficulties we have in the Northwest Territories logistical area in administration of the gun law.

So, Mr. Speaker-elect, I want to embrace the challenge of modernization. I want to be able to talk again with my colleagues on how we can develop political reform, economic and social reform. That seems to be the issue of the day, as well as the transformation into the future. We need to be able to represent those wishes of our people and how we begin to communicate strongly. I would ask your support. I will continue to work in trying to make a valuable contribution as a continuing Cabinet Minister.

There are a number of issues that we are confronted with and that were expressed earlier and will continue to be expressed across the Northwest Territories. We need to develop methodologies in trying to support local economic business development. Local economic business development tends to drive social and cultural development. So in that context I want to work with all Members of the Assembly that we do address that quickly and efficiently.

Yes, we can talk about the debt wall, but we must find new, innovative ways to deal with our resource revenues and I want to talk about how we should talk about our own resource revenues. I think we have the capability. When we talk about how do we bring back our net export, our superannuation/private pension funds, all the land claims money that goes into different investments in the south that we don't reap a benefit from outside of industry investment.

There are a number of practical conflicts we need to discuss as an Assembly and I want to assure the Members here that as a Member of Cabinet I will work with our Premier- acclaimed, I will work with the newly elected Cabinet Members and the Assembly, as well. I've had the privilege in the last four years to understand the process of this House. I've spent my time learning. I've had the privilege of working with the Chairs of the committees to forward legislation. Some of that legislation sat on the table, I understand, for 20 years. The Human Rights Act, for instance, and the Family Violence Act was another very critical piece of legislation that we passed, but I didn't do it on my own. I worked very closely with the Chairs to ensure that our legal counsel and legislative counsel were pushed and came to a conclusion to that level of work.

So I feel that, if you look very closely, I've been committed to working again with an open-door policy and I will continue to do so. So today I ask you again if you would consider providing that support for my campaign for a Cabinet post. Thank you very much, colleagues.

---Applause