Mr. Speaker, I haven't had time to work on a stirring and passionate speech like some of our other Members here. The last couple of weeks, I have been busy working on amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act, trying to get my research and the rest of that in place. As a matter of fact, I have had to work so much on it that I've been dreaming about headlights on our roads for the last couple of weeks.
I have also been working from 9:00 a.m. to approximately 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. every night. We leave here about that time, go home, spend a little bit of time with our families and then try to deal with constituents' problems. So I haven't really had much time to prepare, but I do have a few brief comments.
I also appreciate the hard work and dedication of the staff of the Legislative Assembly.
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I would like to thank the staff for all their assistance and, particularly, those who helped me with my work on the amendment to the headlights bill. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to comment a little bit about comments made by my fellow MLA, Mr. Ootes, indicating how much work the MLAs do. In the last little while, we've been getting here at 9:00 a.m.; sometimes 8:00 a.m., depending on how much work has to be done. From there, it's one meeting after another all day. You go from one meeting to another, and even during lunch time you have a meeting. We meet all day and, at supper time, it's another meeting. We've been finishing here at 8:30 at night, but I usually try to answer letters and the rest of that, so I am here until 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to indicate that I am still learning, and I look forward to coming back in the fall with this new experience under my belt. We have now gone through one budget. We will be looking at another budget in the tall, and I hope that my past experience will help me and the other new MLAs to do a better job. We will now know what questions to ask and what to look for, rather than it just being a learning experience.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to close be reiterating Mr. Roland's words: "We are all hard-working people here; MLAs. We all want what's best for our constituents, but it's now time to forget our petty differences. It's now time to concentrate on what's best for our constituents. It's now time to look at what's best for the NWT and to work hard for that. " Mahsi.
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