Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, I felt like a foreign object so many times when I am being told that I am the only woman in the Nunavut government, but the decision was made by the people of Nunavut. This is a decision that was made by the people and it has already been discussed and it should no longer be open for discussion.
I would like to thank every one of my staff who have been very supportive and loyal to me, I respect them highly. I have gotten to know a lot of them, which I have tried to do. I appreciate them for the last supper that they had for me, where I just started crying because I appreciated the time they had for me and the organizing that went into that supper. I would like to thank each and every one of the Nunavut Members who will be going to Nunavut with me and also to the western Members who voted me to be on Cabinet. Thank you for your confidence. I hope I have done you well and I hope I have served your communities well. I hope that I have served the aboriginal leaders here in the west well, I hope I have listened to them and understand their determination and aspirations.
I think we are lucky in a way that in Nunavut we have 80 percent aboriginal. I am very happy that we will be speaking our language in our Nunavut government. It is my language, I dream in it, I think in it, it is part of me and I will be so glad to speak without thinking. When you have to speak English, it is a little bit more difficult because you have to think before you speak so that you are not using the wrong words. When you are speaking your own language, it is like you are in paradise or something, it is a completely different world. I do not know what paradise is like, but it certainly feels like that to go home to Nunavut to speak in my own language, to live in my own culture, to govern the people with the language they understand, the majority of them. I do know it is going to be a public government, it is going to be the people's government. I do know that and everybody should feel welcome to our government.
There will be non-aboriginals in our government and they will be as welcomed as anybody else. We are partnerships, they are family to us, but when you speak your own language, it is a different experience.
Thank you so much, all the staff upstairs, all the staff downstairs. You have made my life a lot easier. I would like to say goodbye to all my friends that I have made here in Yellowknife, in the western Arctic. I would like to say thank you to my Mom and Dad, they believed in me, and the Ministers that I sat with, they believed in me also and I appreciate them. Whoever takes my seat here, all the luck. Thank you.
--Applause