Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to welcome all colleagues back to the Assembly, I hope you have had a good summer. I would like to get the niceties out first and hi to my wife and children back home. I might as well keep up the tradition.

Mr. Speaker, during the time back home in the community of Inuvik I had a chance to hear many of the people raise their concerns and to sit back on reflect on what we have done and taken part in. I agree with the Premier's statement that we need to discuss whether we are meeting the standard of fairness and equity. It is time that we, as an assembly, sat down and seriously considered what we are doing, are we getting the value of our dollar and all the things we said we would be doing. Are we accomplishing the goal that was put before us?

We were told we would save a certain amount of dollars here and there and we agreed. We started to see the fallout of that and it would be interesting to hear other members, if what was said in our committee meetings and how it was justified in the reductions if we indeed, achieved those or if we have affected others in a different way or made things worse for others. Mr. Speaker, I think it is seriously time that we looked at our goals and are they achievable. I say this, not to say it is time to turn around and stop and freeze our pattern, but instead to say, are there some adjustments we need to do to achieve our goal that we set out in balancing the budget?