Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. The evidence of climate change is upon us. We see it every day. On November 2, 2014, I went sailing on Great Slave Lake, which is, frankly, bizarre. We need to do something here in the Northwest Territories. That doesn't mean we haven't done anything. We have done a significant amount to reduce our carbon footprint. We have more pellet boilers I think in most organizations and we have done a lot of internal work with our lighting in a lot of our buildings. That's not enough. We have a Greenhouse Gas Strategy that has expired. It's time to come forward with a climate change strategy with two components. Mitigation is a first priority. What do we need to do to reduce our footprint, but not just the government's footprint, the territorial footprint and how we can support families, homes, businesses and others reduce their footprint and find alternative sources of energy and to reduce their carbon footprint or footprint.

On the other side, we also need to acknowledge that changes are upon us now and we need a mitigation strategy and adaptation strategy as well. We, as a government of 19 Members, have to come together. We have to work with our partners in the South, in Ottawa. We know the federal government has recently signed on to COP21, and the Prime Minister has indicated he wants to meet with Premiers in the next 90 days to start working out details that each one of the jurisdictions, provinces and territories, can undertake in order to help Canada meet its targets that it has signed on to. We need to be part of that.

I think there are great people in this room with significant background in this area who could really help us develop a strategy that is going to make a difference moving forward, and I look forward to working with Members, I look forward to working with our federal partners, and I look forward to working with business, industry, residents and people across the Northwest Territories who have some great ideas on how we can develop a really comprehensive climate change strategy focusing on mitigation and adaptation.