Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will give my budget address later today. At this time, I want to talk of strategies. Mr. Speaker, a goal without a strategy is just a slogan. On April 1, 1999, do we want to become known as a slogan driven government? All the buzz words of slogan driven agendas are there. We have a common agenda, a common plan. My children, and your children, and the one that creeps up in every discussion, with the board collective in the house at the end of the day. The point here, Mr. Speaker, is our revenue has been reduced, and we seem to be void of other areas of revenue generation outside the doom and gloom of new taxes or tax increases. We have not addressed new social housing issues, or a comprehensive job strategy.

But in fairness, it has been a rough 15 months. Mr. Speaker, the mandate of the 13th Assembly has been fraught with less federal funding, looming division, a forced growth rate in the social envelope that is driving the majority of our expenditures. It is not a time, Mr. Speaker, to begin to sit down as an Assembly and ask the residents, the constituency of the Northwest Territories, where the focus for the last 700-odd days of this government are headed before division.

We will have to evaluate the down sizing, reductions, and lay offs, the program cuts, and elimination of jobs and services. The full impact on the pace and direction of our community empowerment and our hiring policies. Then, and only then, can we plan for a course of action leading up to April 1 division and beyond.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to raising these and other issues during the main estimate debates of the particular departments in the committee of the whole over the next few weeks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.