Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regard to statements that have been made so far today in regard to replies to the opening address, I for one believe that the consensus style of government is unique and it does work for the geographical makeup of the Northwest Territories, with our small population, our vast area, the distance between communities, from north to south, east to west, and also to ensure that we have a system that basically allows us to have the flexibility or the ability to develop agendas and issues that affect each one of us every day, day in and day out, and be able to establish an agenda of issues and items that we, all 19 Members, are able to have a say on how we are going to govern ourselves, and also how we are able to bring matters to the floor in regard to not having to worry if the issues you are bringing forth are based on a party system, in which one party may agree or disagree, but also allowing ourselves to work for the betterment of the people we serve, and the uniqueness of a party system, which does not allow you to really do that, because in most cases, you have to stick to party solidarity and stick to the party platform, which in most cases, once it is set it is set and there is no swaying away from that.

I think one thing that we have to realize as a government that makes us unique is also that we do have a system in place for accountability. We have a system that we establish through rules, regulations and policies and the way the decisions should be made through a system of checks and balances.

Yet, Mr. Speaker, what we see in most cases is that we are not following the rules that we set for ourselves and also the process that we allow ourselves through a decision-making process that allows input from our Members, allows us to have dialogue with the Cabinet Ministers through a planning process, a budgetary process and ensuring that we do have a system that really works.

Mr. Speaker, from what we have seen in the 14th Assembly is that we are not following our rules and following policies and regulations that we put in place to ensure that accountability is there.

One thing which I see which is troubling to myself is the amount of power that we put into the hands of the few by way of deputy ministers. Now we have a system in place dealing with how capital is going to be allocated. We have a deputy minister's committee which basically sets the capital priorities based on a room full of deputy ministers.

Before that we had a system in place which was a five-year capital planning process which allowed communities and governments and the MLAs to sit down and say, what does the community need through its capital planning process and go in there every year to update that plan. We for some reason have short-circuited that system to allow for deputy ministers to have the ability to sit in their room and say "Okay, what do you want, what do you want, what do I need?" but not allowing ourselves as Members of the Legislature to say, "Look, here guys. The capital expenditures you are making affects every one of us in the Northwest Territories by way of all communities we represent, the ridings we represent, and to be fair to the 19 Members in this House.

What I have seen coming from the 13th Assembly into the 14th Assembly is that we have had allegations made to certain Members in regard to calling for reviews by way of conflict complaints and at the end of it all we find out that there are all these recommendations made by way of setting rules and regulations so that this thing does not happen again.

The first thing we do going in from the 13th Assembly into this Assembly is we sort of chucked out the rules and said, "Well sorry guys, we will give all the power to a group of deputy ministers to tell us how we are going to do things, how we are going to expend capital dollars and you guys sit in the room with a bunch of cards and play poker amongst yourselves and say, "Hey, who is going to win once, who has got the biggest hand and who has got the better hand? We will win those capital projects." The Department of Justice seems to be doing a great job.

Now they are able to get a capital expense of some $50 million yet we are having problems in the area of health, social services, programs and services in our governments.

Yet, Mr. Speaker, consensus government works when we abide by the rules, not change the rules for the sake of changing the rules, but set the rules, give it the teeth and the ability to really mean something; to really have the ability to avoid these things from happening again.

I for one feel that we as a government have to ensure that we have a system that is open. That we do not have a room of deputy ministers sitting there by themselves allocating capital that has an effect on everyone in this House, and everyone in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, I was totally amazed to go through a process where there was zero dollars. The highways in my ridings, Highway No. 8, that is the first time I have ever seen a zero relating to that capital infrastructure. Yet we find out that there has been million-dollar contracts signed to the tune of some $12 million to do work in regard to Highway No. 3. Twelve million dollars. Yet there is zero for Highway No. 8.

I think as a government we have to be accountable. We have to show we are not there strictly for the sake of excuses that it is based on a formula, it is based on numbers, it is based on need or greed. I am not too sure which one of those it fits into.

I think as a government we have to be able to have a system that for the little guy that is having a problem with accessing housing or someone having problems because they are not able to access social benefits, or someone who is not having access to our health and social services system because of the system being overrun by the bureaucracy and too much red tape.

I think as a government we have to do more to realistically say to ourselves, who elected us? Who are the people that put us here? Who are the people who, at the end of the day, put their trust and faith in us by voting for us, to give us the support that we need to be here representing them? Not the other way around, that once we get here we say, well I have a title now, I am a little bit higher up the ladder so basically you people down below there, if we have any crumbs left over we will sort of shove them aside, and if you get some of them, well you get to keep those.

Yet we are hearing about clawbacks, benefit agreements,. People have waited for years to finally get some real benefit from resource development in the Northwest Territories and what do we do? Claw back those benefits. There is something wrong with a system when the power of a department or the power of a particular bureaucrat is so fast that we have no real system of saying, well look here, what rule did you follow? What was the accountability process? What were the checks and balances to ensure there was a thorough review of those decisions, or a thorough review to ensure that there is a paper trail that you can say, that decision was based on these checks. Not a decision made that after the fact you find out there was no real accountability process, there was no real evaluation of what the cost benefit was or what the evaluation, what the loss of that program is to the residents of the Northwest Territories.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that we do have to ensure that accountability is key. Consensus government works when the accountability is in place and we follow their rules that are established. What we are finding is that those rules are being breached and broken day in and day out by a system of government which needs to be made more accountable. If that means establishing more rules, then I guess we will have to do that.

What frustrates me, coming from the 13th Assembly into the 14th Assembly, is we never learned what happened in the 13th Assembly. Basically all we are doing is saying, "Well, that is their problem, we are sort of going to reinvent our own rules, regulations, our own agenda and we will move on whatever we feel like. If we feel good on a particular day, a particular issue, we will move on it, not really realizing what the implications to the whole society in the Northwest Territories will be from the small communities to the large communities to the programs and services, from health care to justice to ensuring that we have the dollars to run our programs and services.

Mr. Speaker, I for one feel that it comes back to a question of trust, honesty, accountability and also being able to work together.

I use the last word "work together" in the context of listening from all sides, hearing what people are saying, good, bad or indifference, but at least at the end of the day we walk out of the room with a consensus where we all can agree that the decision we made is a decision we can all live by.

Without that consensus, where we know that we are fractured to a point where we cannot agree, well, at least let's, at the end of the day, agree to disagree and move on and leave that matter to someone else.

I for one feel that, as a system of government, we cannot afford the luxury of party politics where big dollars and people who have power by way of affiliation of a specific party, the Liberal Party, the PC Party, the NDP. You can buy an election strictly by affiliation.

You can basically, at the end of the day, establish policies, procedures, which are strictly established for special interest groups, not the interest of the people but the interest of special interest groups who want their agenda driven through a particular party.

In regard to party politics, but yet in a consensus government, we can talk about the social issues. We can talk about the education problems. We can talk about programs and services that are either lacking in one area where we need a major cash influx in another.

I think that as a government, we have to pull back some of these powers and responsibilities that we have been devolving to deputy ministers, to bureaucrats in this government who, in my view, have too much power. They have the power to do whatever they feel they would like to do, knowing there is no accountability at the end of the day, where if it comes down to a vote in the House, or comes down to a decision through a supplementary appropriation, there is very little that we can do from this side of the House. As we found out, you can try to pass a motion or make a suggestion of cutting a specific dollar amount. At the end of the day, you do not really have that much power, being a Member on this side of the House.

The only power we have is through the dialogue we have through the capital planning process, and ensuring that the system of developing a budget, which we have a say in, but yet the direction comes from a department. The key is to get to the department before they make that decision, so when they come down to sit down with us with a budget, we had input, not after the fact a committee of deputy ministers stand around in a room and decided what the priority is based on their formula. There has to be a better system in place that allows ourselves as Members of the Legislative Assembly and Members who represent constituents, people in our ridings and people in the Northwest Territories, to develop a plan, a business plan, a budget, that we bring forth to this House which we know that we have covered all the bases. We have allowed for a fair distribution of the resources, so that it is distributed across the board fairly, not strictly sitting aside, allowing a committee of deputy ministers to make that decision for us, because that is where the problem lies in this government. We have too much power in the hands of a few. I for one feel that we have to develop a better accountability system.

You hear it from the Cabinet Ministers. They say that they have gone to the department demanding certain thing. They have stressed that they wanted the department to change, but yet at the end of the day, the department says "Sorry, folks, we are responsible for the department. All you are is a Minister." So if they have that much power, what does that tell us? That we have lost control of this government where the bureaucracy runs what goes on in this Legislative Assembly, what goes in our budgets, what is going to be allocated to any particular riding or community? That for me is where the bottleneck is. We have to re-look at this whole area of accountability, accessibility, ensuring that the public dollars are being spent and are being accounted for through a system that gives us that accountability.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues for giving me another shot at this. Mahsi.