Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I too came here two years ago as a kind of a naive person, to say the least. I expected and was going to make some major changes to the way we do things. I was under the impression that all of us had the same ambitions and we intended to create a government with a new way of doing things.

Mr. Chairman, it took me about six months to find out that I was just dreaming. There was no new way of doing things. In fact, we found out that most of the government policies were not put forward to us to consider it to be changed at the time when we were doing our original review. I recall requesting that these policies be put for discussion purposes, but it never happened. I was under the impression, and I still am, that unless you change the policies of a government or of a business or anything and you do not make any changes, you are just going to continue following in the same old rut. As a matter of fact, it did not take us long to find out that there were contracts in place that we could have no input on because they had a life of five years. Those contracts basically identified how this whole government operates. Because they were major contracts. They are still there.

I do not wish to sound like I am always downsizing the government all the time, but I will say that we did so fine, we did balance the budget. That is over and done with, good. Let us forget it. Let us move on to other things. We have prepared for division. We have gone as far as we can go, as far as I am concerned. From now on, the federal government is going to have to do something. So let us forget that issue too.

What is the next item we had on the agenda? I suggested it was Economic Opportunities. But have we done anything about that? That is the one issue that I feel could probably address a lot of issues, including the social issues.

In addressing the economic opportunities of the territories, we should look at the haves and the have not areas. For instance, with all the development going on in Nunavut right now creating a new government, I am not sure there is any shortage of jobs down there any more. I am also hearing there is no shortage of jobs in Norman Wells. I am also hearing that there is no shortage of jobs in Yellowknife because of the big mines. Maybe this government should be directing their economic abilities to those areas that do not have anything.

In that regard, I would suggest that this government should come up with some major plan to address the economic opportunities of this territory. I am not aware of any major plan this government has to address jobs and economic opportunities. I am talking long-term jobs and economic opportunities. I am not talking $16 million spread over the territory in one year. I am suggesting here long-term, and I am suggesting that maybe the way to address it would be to address our shortage of transportation infrastructure. I believe that this particular item could go a long way to address all our problems in this territory. Is it creating an infrastructure that would attract industry, and it would attract small businesses? Would it have a long-term effect on job creation and the local economy?

I think that is what we should be doing now, and I hope the Premier has some kind of plan that he is going to put into place for us to review and make comments on. I think the real issue facing the people right now, is that they want jobs rather than welfare, or the new word for it is, income support. I do not know what else you could call it. We just change the name of the thing, but it really means the same thing. I think people are not that easily fooled. They know you are talking about the same thing, and they do not want it. They want jobs and economic opportunities. I think this government has to do that before our terms are up.

With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you.