Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had originally planned on doing a reply to opening address, but I decided not to do it because I wanted us to get on with our agenda today, but now that we are in this, I really do want to comment and add to the debate that is going on in this House. I will try to make my comments relatively short.
Mr. Speaker, I do believe what we are talking about here is very relevant. It is in fact a reply to the opening address that Minister Antoine stated in this House back in February 19th. In the sessional statement, he stated that our constituents also ask that we give them an open and accountable government, so it is very relevant that we are talking about how, in fact, accountable we are.
Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that, given what has been happening in this House for a little while, and actually in the collective three years that I have been here, I have given a lot of thought about exactly what sort of government system we have and whether or not it is working as best as it should, and whether or not there is any room for us to improve.
I must be honest, Mr. Speaker, I have not figured that one out and I think if I did, I would be elsewhere writing a book or something. What I do know, Mr. Speaker, is that whatever we have here is not working. I have no doubt in my mind that we have to review this and try to find a way to improve it.
Mr. Speaker, I must also say that I do not really know exactly what consensus government is, but having heard from those who want to speak about it, how I understand the consensus government is that you have a group of people, leaders, they gather around with a common purpose, a mutual objective with the public interest in mind, that discuss important issues of the day on behalf of the people that they serve or they represent.
At the end of the discussions, there has to be a consensus as to where that group should be heading to. Mr. Speaker, if that is the definition of a consensus, or if that is a functional purpose of a consensus government, I can tell you that is not happening in this House.
Mr. Speaker, in the last three years, I do not know of any important issue or anything that we have agreed on. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if 19 of us could agree that this room is round, or if the sky out there is dark today.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is high time that we get out of this collective denial that this consensus government is the be all and end all, and that it is serving the people of the Northwest Territories.
I do not want to be seen as somebody who is an advocate of party politics either. I want to make that very clear. I think that I cannot imagine what worse life than a backbencher in a party system, or a junior member in an opposition party, with all due respect to all the parliamentarians around the world who possess that kind of office, because I know that I serve better some of the issues that my constituents bring to me and that on occasion, I have been able to address their personal issues and personal situations because I am an independent Member in a consensus government.
That does not say that our system that we have here, this consensus system, is a model for all and that it is serving and that it should be maintained at all costs. I further say, Mr. Speaker, that as far as I can see, what we have here is a 19 party system, so we already have a party system, in my opinion. We have 19 party leaders here. We all represent our own platform. We ran on it and we got elected on it. I do not know what...each one of us had a platform when we ran. So we came in here as 19 parties, and we form a coalition -- a very loose coalition -- in this House.
Mr. Speaker, what I see is we have a coalition of Cabinet versus non-Cabinet. Maybe we have a coalition of Yellowknife and the rest, although Yellowknife Members never, I do not think, got together to talk about moving as a Yellowknife Cabinet, or Yellowknife coalition. I also see that by virtue of so many issues we discuss, we have a loose coalition of rural and urban, or some sort of a group...I do not know.
Cabinet Members, the coalition of seven party leaders, obviously need three more party leaders to pass anything. So once in a while, they grab three from the rest of us and then they can pass things. That is the reality of what is going on here.
We do not have a consensus government and we do not have a consent on anything. The biggest question, the most important question we have to ask is how are we serving the public.