Madam Speaker, I, too, will say that it took courage to bring the motion on to the floor. I fully realize that this topic has been discussed other than in this House. I want to assure the Member, as well, by changing the name from Government Leader to Premier did not extend any further powers to my position; it was merely a name change.

I, too, in the past have suggested that if we wanted to take a further evolution on responsibilities that the Premier should also be allowed to pick the Ministers. However, our decision together was to continue with the process. As a result, the responsibility, that I take very seriously and which has been put into my hands, is to make sure the job gets done to the best of the ability that we have. When the rating process was put in place what really didn't happen was a way on how the Members wanted to monitor this. One of the concerns they had was using the word defensive when a question was placed to the honourable Member. In my discussions, I believe this is an area where there was great improvement. I think the Members will understand, as well, when you're new and when there are so many people who have a great deal of experience that you have to answer to, you do have a feeling of defensiveness. You feel that perhaps it's a new area that you've taken and it's very difficult.

There's been a question of work-load. As Members know, in Canada, in many places in the world, and in the Northwest Territories, people are changing their focus, people are moving much more quickly to know and feel that, whether it's constitutionally, or with rights on programs, there is a demand for delivery. A number of Members who have had experience before will realize when we discuss portfolios, one of the most critical areas that people have an opposition to taking on a responsibility is to health and mainly to social services because it's always been determined, particularly social services, that this is an area where you were dealing with the end result of social breakdown, the end result of people evolving and feeling not part of the system so therefore struggling to take part. In that struggle to take part, people question their own ability to be worthwhile citizens. Therefore, this portfolio, although it may appear small in size, is an area which affects many of the people who have ended up at the bottom of the ladder.

I know many of us have been in a situation where... we've been a privileged group of people where we've been able to take part in the educational system, maybe we've had parents that supported us more, maybe we had communities that had more support, but we have to realize that times are changing and people are demanding more and more from the government to lend support in areas where the families should be there, where the communities should be there. People are demanding those changes to try to reflect that and give that support back to community, back to families. When you do that it has to be understood there has been a great deal of stress and strain in that area pulling on people's emotions, pulling on people's self-esteem, pulling on people's ability to make a living, pulling on people's ability to feel good about themselves. I know there have been questions about work-load. This is a very heavy work-load. In dealing with clinical areas of some program delivery, it's much easier to measure success, measure action against the final output as it represents individuals. This is hard to measure, it's difficult to measure.

I want to bring to your attention some of the things that have happened in the last little while. Mind you, this is not our work ourselves but has been cooperative work with the standing committees, with people who have taken much interest in the social well-being of Northwest Territories residents. In the last while what we've done under the direction and involvement of the Minister, and these things sometimes can not be translated and sometimes go astray in measuring whether a person is reacting or responding to the wishes of the Legislative Assembly.

Before us, we have a Guardianship and Trusteeship Act. We've been struggling with that for ten years or more. We've been struggling with the Aboriginal Custom Adoption Recognition Act for many, many years to say something of value to traditional people and how they do things, how do we give it recognition? We come to you with an income reform package and this has been done with the involvement of the Minister and the particular person that we're talking about. The staff housing strategy has not gone away or been developed without a great deal of pain. The youth initiative program is something that has come to fruition. The child welfare reform, response to the Special Committee on Health and Social Services. I know in one of the responses it was said that the Minister wasn't responsive, but at that time we weren't able, because of the cross-section of that responsibility and reaching other departments, to have a comprehensive report and response.

The alcohol and drug workers' salaries have been looked at. The strategic plan for alcohol and drug services, the social services human resource plan, the training program for family violence workers and shelters, the solvent abuse strategy, the adolescent solvent abuse pilot programs. These are things that have been brought forward in the last little while and these are issues that have been on the table previously over a long period of time. I believe that some of these areas would not have happened if it wasn't for the dedication of the Minister that's responsible. It took a great deal of involvement and listening to people to get to that stage.

Madam Speaker, I feel that at this time there has been improvement in this Minister's responsibility to the specific area that she's responsible for. Thank you.