Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. During the last Assembly, actually participating in the campaign school I thought was a good way for me to share some of the knowledge I have about how to campaign in the Northwest Territories, for women who might be interested in campaigning. That's something I think more of us, as Members, need to consider doing and encourage people to run.
But more importantly, what things we can do within this Legislative Assembly is, as Premier, I can actually look at our senior management staff and try to bring more equity into the senior management staff to make sure that there's better representation, or more equal representation of women and Aboriginal peoples at a senior management level.
I also, and I indicated it earlier, would like to incorporate an equity-based analysis as part of the training that all policy and program development staff are required to take. This will give them the skills they need to design programs that meet the needs of all of our residents and the diversity of the residents across the Northwest Territories. I think these types of things will help us start evolving our programs, get more involvement of individuals who are not adequately or appropriately represented in government as well as in politics.
We also need to look at things like child care. I talked to a number of different women who were looking at running, and they're final decision for not running was: “I still have to take care of my family. I don't have the time. I don't have the resources. If we had better, more affordable daycare, I may have been able to run.” So there are a number of different things we can do.
But as you probably noticed, Mr. Speaker-elect, I'm not a woman, I am a man, and I truly cannot understand what it is like to be a woman. So, I need to work closely with my colleagues on the other side of the House to find real solutions to make change here in the Northwest Territories, and I'm looking forward to that relationship and trying to find ways to improve our representation in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.