Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. I believe that the best way to get more women into the Legislative Assembly is to find ways to have more women running for office. I believe that it was very encouraging to see an increase in the number of women who ran in this most recent election. I, as the Minister responsible for Women in the last Assembly, worked to have election forums so that we could show women what is involved in running for office, and there was quite a turnout. I believe that we need to start earlier, rather than the last year of a term of a government. We should start right away and continue to do work on an annual basis, perhaps, and find the funding. When we did it, we were criticized because we only did it here in Yellowknife, and women outside of Yellowknife, if they wanted to participate, had to pay their own way to participate in the election forum. So, perhaps we can move it around and have it in more centres, more regional centres, more communities, so that other women can have access to it.

I believe that, looking at our government, we've been able to increase our deputy minister cadre, so at least 50 percent of the deputy ministers are women, and our workforce is 65 percent women. Our senior management is improving. One area where we need to improve is the number of indigenous women who are senior managers. We need to improve in that area.

But we have to keep working at it. I think that with the benefit of a lot of women who have run for office, we will continue to improve in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.