Mr. Chairman, it has been a number of years that the whole discussion on who makes decisions, who controls or how can programs better apply and reflect people, has been going on. This has been an ongoing discussion. The consultative process has been going on from as far back as when I first came here in 1979, and before that. The concern of us being with a government system that is very difficult to manoeuvre through to reach a goal, has been discussed. That is one of the reasons that we commissioned this report, to consolidate the thinking of people at the community level, in this Legislative Assembly, of some of the cabinet Ministers, deputy ministers who were involved, people at all regions who were involved. We made sure that the teams that were on here reflected the various regions and communities and people involved in the process.
This document is a consolidation of the thinking of a great number of people who were consulted and talked to, and all I am trying to say is that it appears to me, from my reflection, that it is a very clear document. It may not cover everything that we wished it to cover, but it gives us a very clear direction on which is the best way to go in dealing with peoples' concerns and issues that were brought up over the many, many years.
Community self-government was one that a number of communities were involved with, but it was so difficult to make the decisions that will allow them to take over the programs they wanted to take over, they just gave up because they said that the government was too complex -- who is making the decision; why cannot we take this over; how can we do it this way? There was no framework for them to achieve their goals. Certainly there has been a great deal of discussion while these people went and discussed at various levels what it is that people feel the most concern about regarding this government; why we are not doing what they want us to do; why they feel that we are a bad government; why they feel that we are not being able to deliver the types of things they want at a pace they want.
I see this as us keeping up with the communities. It is not for us to sit here and say, "Holy crow, we are giving something to the communities." The communities are fed up with waiting; they are very tired of being told, "Go to this department, go to that department; it is over here where the decision should be made; it is that office you should go to." They are saying, "Why can we not run the programs at the community level the way we want them? This is our idea; this is what we want to do." That is really just addressing that.
I am trying to put together a program of implementation where people, when they want to do something, can get it done. Thank you.