Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to take a different tack here, maybe different from my colleague, Mr. Gargan. I can agree, Mr. Chairman, on a number of the issues that he has raised, and he has made it quite clear about the need to develop a northern benefits package that reflects northern conditions, and I support that.

I support the comments that have been made here, in this House, about improving and increasing the number of aboriginal people in the public service. Not only in terms of people being recruited in the lower levels of our bureaucracy, but in the higher, middle management, upper management of our public service. I want to make one point, and it is this, that on the matter of senior positions, is the matter of the political leaders to decide that aboriginal people should take on responsibilities in deputy minister positions. If they do not feel comfortable with aboriginal people, and are not prepared to nominate those people, then the political leadership have to be accountable for that. That is really not a matter that you are generally responsible for. You are, in fact, responsible for the middle management, and I note in your remarks that you have made comments, that we still do have a significant educational problem that exists. I am hoping that as we get on in dealing with the educational system, that we can provide for properly educated citizens, young people, or even older people. Education programs that will allow them to take on the responsibility as manager.

I wanted to say this, that at many times we have a tendency to criticize our public servants, yet, we sometimes forget that there are a lot of public servants in the Northwest Territories, that are first aboriginal people, second that are long term northern people, that have been born and raised here, and thirdly, have made a commitment to live in the Northwest Territories. We sometimes forget that, and maybe we should be complimenting them on some of the work that they do for us, that we are proud of. We sometimes ignore that. We do it, and I do it, at times. I am going to say to you, let us compliment these people once in a while. We talk about the morale of people not being strong, we talk about the morale of people because they are uncertain, in many cases, of the political direction that they are receiving. One minute they are being requested to help them in the communities, people are happy with that, and the next minute they are being criticized for things that they maybe did not do perfectly, but they were trying to do something that you requested them to do.

I think we have to be consistent about what it is that we tell our public servants. It is interesting to note that today, for instance, we raised a good deal of praise on our interpreter/translators, but all of them are public servants, with the exception of our French translators, who are on contract. If we are proud of them, I think we should say that. We cannot continue to be critical of our public service.

The other point that I wanted to make, is that we raise concern about this point about unions getting too much money. In some cases, I can agree that they are making more money, but you have to weigh that against your competition. You have to weigh it against the people that are recruiting, not only in Canada, but around the world. It is interesting why we say we want a lot of nurses, medical professionals in the Northwest Territories. If you look at the documentation before us, and, in fact, in some of the documents across the country, that are recruiting for nurses, I made this point before, and it is this, that they are offering more benefits for a nurse to work in Texas than they do right now in the Northwest Territories. There is on average, a higher wage in Alberta for nurses, than there is in the Northwest Territories. That is what we are competing with. Those are the professionals.

If we are going to get to a point where we can recruit our aboriginal people, then let us get on with it, in terms of trying to develop the programs, and support the programs, not only talk about it, but support the programs in this Assembly. Sometimes we do not do that. We should also make a point, Mr. Chairman, it was a point that was made again, by Mr. Gargan, and it is that there were a lot of letters that were sent, as a result of remarks made by Mr. Kakfwi, maybe they were made in the wrong context, but it was remarks relating to the matter of legislation. I think they were unfortunate, in terms of when they were said, and the way the response was made.

I want to say to you that the people in my constituency, the majority of them, were not from outside my region. The majority of the people that talked to me are in the public service, and in the Mackenzie Delta area, in fact, from those communities. With the exception of some teachers, and some of the nurses.

I had a chance to meet with some of the people who were representing the union in my communities, and they were from Fort McPherson, or Aklavik, they were not from outside. So, in many ways, they were expressing a concern to me. I had to raise that point, in fact I spoke to Mr. Kakfwi on a number of occasions about it, and criticized him even in this House when he was making mention of that. That is history now, and we can go on with the new agreement, as it has been signed.

I have a lot of other comments to make, but I just wanted to put those words on record. Sometimes we have a tendency, I think, of being too critical, not moving back once in a while, and directing a few pleasant remarks to the staff who do a lot of hard work for us. That is all I wanted to say. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.