Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your advice and I will take that to heart. Mr. Speaker, as a government, we have to represent and represent with confidence -- represent with the confidence of our constituents. I believe that confidence is waning. I believe the people who work for government and who have to follow through with the direction of this government have to have the confidence in the government that they work for. I believe, Mr. Speaker, 90 percent, at least that is the number I believe is out there, do not have the confidence in the government that they work for.
Therefore, I ask myself, would they be working as hard as they can to implement the direction that we give to our bureaucracy if they do not believe in the government that they work for? I would have to say no, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we do have a looming deficit. We do know about that deficit. It is unfortunate the public does not know what the number is and what the government plans to do to mitigate that problem.
We know what happened in the 13th Assembly and the drastic measures that government had to take to address their looming deficit. I believe that we have to inform our constituents through this House, before we stop for session. We know today is the last day of the 5th session. We will be proroguing, if we follow our agenda, and we will be opening a new session, the 6th session, tomorrow, for a day, which does not give us time to address and question and debate how government is going to mitigate the problems of our financial situation.
We have been taking up too much of the Legislature's time dealing with issues that should not have been dealt with to begin with, Mr. Speaker. The issue of confidence in our Premier, that is twice in one year that we have to deal with that issue. It is unfortunate that the honourable Member was not honourable in dealing with us when he should have stepped down and gained confidence in the people of the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, I heard in the House that maybe it is the system of governance that we have, where the consensus government is in question for the actions of a few. I do not think it is a consensus style of government. I think we have to follow our own rules and procedures. If we do that, then there will not be any problems. We could use the valuable time that we have in here to address the issues that are faced by the people of the Northwest Territories, not the issues by the people in here.
Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on and on about this issue. We will be debating a motion that may help us address the confidence issue of this government, but I would like to have assurances that what we have worked towards, that is in our business plans, will stay in our business plans because that is what we told our constituents will happen for them in their communities, whether they live on the east side of the Great Slave Lake or up in Holman Island, and in parts in between. That is what the people expect of us. I hope that Cabinet and the Minister of Finance would not alter the business plans to address the issues of finances.
I will be asking that question in the House for the Minister's response tomorrow. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.