Please be seated. Mr. Speaker, Members of the Legislature, I am pleased to welcome you to the Second Session of the 13th Assembly.

First of all, I want to recognize the difficult work Members have been involved in since being elected last November and the hours you have spent away from your families and your homes while developing a plan to make sure our budget is balanced.

As the Second Session gets under way, it is appropriate to note that your work is on schedule and that the Premier will be presenting a statement on areas of agreement already reached between Cabinet and the committees. Much has already been accomplished in the development of business plans for departments and the government as a whole.

During the next few weeks, these plans will be completed and reviewed by the standing committees after which the budget will be finalized for presentation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to urge all residents to have a great deal of understanding about the financial circumstances and the difficult social and economic agenda facing the new Legislative Assembly.

As we begin the Second Session of the 13th Assembly, it is my belief that the government's vision of a Northwest Territories with a secure financial future and a healthier, better-educated and more self-sufficient population will be achieved.

And we will do that in a way that will result in the Northwest Territories becoming more established as a politically and economically viable unit of Canada where people will enjoy a good quality of life and where they will have access to more of the jobs they want and need.

Mr. Speaker, this won't happen by itself. It will take some difficult decisions, debate and hard choices to manage our projected deficit. And it will take many people working together to develop the plan on how to get the job done. But we will get there. Northern residents are a tough and resilient people.

While we will have to make some sacrifices and lower our expectations about what governments can do, our vision remains clear. Our belief in a northern Canada with new government institutions that respect cultural values and traditions, that will work towards social and economic stability and fair treatment regardless of race or sex is solid.

It is in support of this vision and this belief, Mr. Speaker, that our government is developing its budget for the 1996-97 fiscal year and an action plan that will return us to a balanced budget before division takes place in April of 1999.

Mr. Speaker, we may find ourselves in a difficult situation, but your government and this Assembly are not going to let it interfere with reaching the goals and objectives that all of us have been working so hard to achieve. We will have to slow down and shoulder a little more of the expense ourselves, but there are good reasons to believe that challenges can be met.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to your government's budget presentation, a legislative program that includes the Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 1995-96, and An Act to Amend the Public Service Act will be introduced for your consideration during this session. Your government considers these bills essential to the good conduct of government business and I recommend their passage.

Mr. Speaker, I now declare open the Second Session of the 13th Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.

---Applause