I am just trying to put a few notes here together, Mr. Speaker, but I promise to be very brief because we have lots of business to do. I have made it my priority that during the time that I am elected I will use every opportunity to respond to the issues on the order paper, including the budget address, and also the reply to the Commissioner.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, just to remind ourselves that this Assembly has been in operation for practically a year. It has probably been the busiest year of any Assembly, ever. If you look at the calendar, that has been distributed to Members, you will find that there is very little room on it for doing all of the things that people normally like to do in the so-called free time, because there is not much free time any more. The candour is crowded with committee work to such an extent, Mr. Speaker, that many of the committees of this House have reached the stature almost of the Executive Committee, and the Executive Committee is just one of the committees of this House. That is the way things are beginning to look, as I see the kind of work that goes on among ordinary Members. The major frustration for many of us, Mr. Speaker, is that the government is taking an awful long time to develop a budget. That has frustrated some people, because usually a budget gives you some indication of the kind of priorities that we can expect to follow over the next four years, one year at a time, this gives you a glimpse as to the thinking of the people we have chosen to be our Executive Committee.

Mr. Speaker, the new budget cycle should require a change to the N.W.T. Act, so that the Assembly could be dissolved in time for a spring election rather than an fall election. This would allow the government time during the summer to prepare its budget in time for the Standing Committee on Finance to review it in the fall, and for the Assembly to examine it during the winter session.

Now, the system is out of kilter with our election dates, and we do not have the flexibility that other Legislatures have throughout this country to decide how it should conduct its business. As one step forward, if you like, in the evolution to have responsible government we should ask that change be made so that we can in fact set our date rather than be bound by the act which tells us we have to have a fall election.

---Applause

Mr. Speaker, the debate on the effectiveness on consensus government continues. I am not convinced that after more than four years, nearly five now, that it is any worse, or any better, than other democratic systems based on political party affiliations. I believe it is grossly unfair, however, that our own legislation does not allow for political parties to support candidates in elections. One day, and I do not know how soon it will be, Mr. Speaker, only men and women who can afford to lose $20,000 will be able to afford to run in an election.

Our act should be changed, in my opinion, to allow political parties to be formed and to have the right to association because in this country it is a basic human right. The right of association is basic, and currently in our system, although you have the right to do something in the sense that you can associate, there is no point in doing it if you cannot follow your mandate. In other words, you cannot help anybody so what is the point of forming?

I believe, although it may not be followed that right should exist here in the territories as it does for all Canadians. Whether people pursue it is another issue. They should be given the right to support candidates if they wish, and it will be up to the public to decide whether that is the way they want to go.

Mr. Speaker, to turn from the Assembly to the government, I believe that one of the problems we have had to face over the last year is that our government is taking the position that the famous Strength of Two Levels Report should be the basis of where we spend our time, resources, energy, and so on.

In my opinion, when this work was undertaken, it was supposed to be a long range plan, and yet what I have seen happen in the public service is that they have tried to make large structural changes very quickly and it absorbs all the interest and all the resources of government to do something which can only be done over a period of time. I know governments like to put their stamp on things by doing it quickly, the first hundred days of action, and so on. That is

okay if you are talking about programs, and you want things to be done, but when you are talking about fundamental change, that cannot happen in a democratic society in the same way that you can achieve fast program changes. So, my suggestion is that by navel-gazing, because that is what it has amounted to, it has been very difficult for the government to give a sense of focus of where it is going in terms of delivery of programs.

It has not been looking outward, it has been looking inward, and my guess is that by looking inwardly, it has caused some degree of dissatisfaction. It gives the impression that the government lacks focus.

The major problem is not the structure of government, Mr. Speaker, but how, in fact, that direction is given. The public service will not be effective if it does not have a sense of where things are going. It seems to be continually changing. This will continue as long as the government invents its mandate as it moves along, and, of course, in our consensus government, it has always been pushed this way and that way by the Members on this side. So one day what may have been okay, suddenly is not okay, because there is a bunch of people telling the Executive Council that is not the way they want to go. Therefore, it is very, very difficult for people in the public service to have a sense of confidence that this is the path and it will forever shine, so we will follow it.

The next problem I see is that there is no bottom-line in government, because we all know, Mr. Speaker, that it is very difficult to measure the effectiveness of what governments do. It is even more difficult when this identification of what it does, changes all the time. So first of all you have the problem of how you deal with effectiveness when there is no bottom line, for instance, what is the product, what are you trying to achieve? It is even more difficult when that objective seems to be changing all the time.

My own guess, Mr. Speaker, is that you can judge how effective things are, by not just the calibre of the people that you have invited to join your public service, but how they feel about going to work everyday. I worked in the government for many, many years, and came to the conclusion that all these forms you filled in, where you had to assess performance, and you went through all these wonderful complicated measures, that the best guide is how well the government was, to figure out whether people wanted to go to work everyday, they were contented to come to work, and they were keen and eager. When you see people dragging you know that things are not good, and that is what I sense now.

I promised to be brief, Mr. Speaker, and I just want to raise three points which I have done before. When we look at the overall sense of direction of development of our government, it seems to me that there are three key features. First of all, investment, and money. What money is floating around there to get things done that you would like to have done. We have not been successful, in my opinion, in doing very much on the revenue side of things and that has to improve. There are kinds of ways in which we could do a lot better job in developing this other economy, which we talk about and never really are very successful. We are very, very good at spending the money we get, we are wonderful at it, but we are never very good at figuring out ways in which we can generate wealth because unless you do that, it is going to be very difficult for us to become independent of the public purse.

So my suggestion, Mr. Speaker, is that unless we get investment, I am talking about investment in the sense of a private sector, then we are not going to develop as a territory that the rest of the country is going to have much confidence in.

To do that, you are going to have to provide, and this is the second point I wanted to make, better infrastructure. We have talked in the past about roads, and so on, and my guess is if we do something of improving the basic infrastructure, it will become more attractive for people to invest in the Northwest Territories. Things like roads, for example, will happen if the government makes some commitments, so that investors will feel that the money that they place here is going to be used to develop the kinds of resources we have.

On a personal note, Mr. Speaker, I was not going to say this today, but when we had to make a decision, a year ago, about the kind of leader that we should have, I had a terrible time, and I normally do not agonize about what we should do. Eventually, I decided not to support Nellie Cournoyea even though I have a tremendous admiration for her. I believe that economic development in our system does not just depend on the non-renewable sector, and I looked at her career, and said, "this person is really committed to that kind of development." It is my own view that kind of development would take place when the conditions are right. When the markets are right, the price of metals, or oils are right. Then those outfits that do that kind of work, can gobble up governments like this, just at breakfast time. We are nothing, if the markets are there, then those pipelines and everything else will be built, come hell or high water, and what we say is not going to make much difference.

I do agree though, with the view that having that kind of infrastructure in place, and having revenues coming in, in the long run, is to the advantage of our government. It give our government a sense of independence. The basic psychological problem is the not the independence of our government it is the independence of our people. The fact that the people know that they can get jobs that are going to last, not just beyond the boom, but will last for a long time in the future. Unless we can find a solution to that, we are not going to be successful in having a really independent population who know that the wealth that is generated will result in jobs, work for them, and for their communities.

It is on the basis of that, the Beaufort and the Mackenzie Valley, and that is the be all and the end all. It may gives us the revenue for our government but that is going to happen anyway, when the conditions are right. The biggest problem that we face in economic terms, is to resolve our internal differences politically and constitutionally to try to find ways of getting wealth invested on the basis of renewable resources. The third thing is to find ways of really improving the ability of our people to take advantage of opportunities that come our way.

I want to say that in addition to infrastructure and investment, we have to find better ways of making our people stronger, healthier, better educated, so that they could have that drive to take advantage of the opportunities that will come our way.

Those three things are the key to the development of our economy, and the keys to our future. On that note, Mr. Speaker, I will sit down, but I would like to tell Madam Premier that I have tremendous confidence in her and I just do not do things under the table. I am blunt and straight out about the way I feel about things. We have to solve this problem of dependence on government if we are going to get anywhere. Thank you.