Thank you, Mr. Speaker and honourable colleagues. I would like to congratulate you first, Mr. Speaker, on your elevation to your role, and note to the House and to the people in the Northwest Territories that your world-class collection of cowboy boots will do a lot to add colour and flair to the position of Speaker.
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My congratulations, also, to the Premier and the elected Cabinet Members. You're a stalwart lot, and I think with the 24 of us working together, as my honourable colleague from Inuvik indicated, as a team and as a family, that we can prove to everybody that consensus government can in fact work and is alive and well in the Northwest Territories. I don't think there should be any doubt if anybody has a problem from outside the boundaries of the Northwest Territories that they should know who to call, and that's the Premier, Mr. Don Morin. There is no doubt; he's the man.
I would like to briefly thank my family as well, and my many supporters in the riding of Thebacha and the people of Thebacha for their support. Well, nearly all of them.
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We have an interesting challenge ahead of us and I do look forward to working with all, not only with the people here duly elected, but the people of the Northwest Territories and the many groups that we're going to need to help us deal with the issues.
I think we have all the pieces in place. The last week has been a good one for me. I came here with a very negative point of view about whether we could make a consensus government work and that we were going to be stuck with a very negative, adversarial-type of government. I am reassured and I am grateful to you all for the good work that we have done and are going to do. Thank you.
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