Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a little bit of time today to share some of my thinking and thoughts with the Members here, who I've worked with over the last four years. I have spent a lot of time in my job, in my life, thinking about the future of the territory and the future of our people, the future that they have together, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it over the summer.

I've spent I'd say about 95 percent of my time in the last year on the road in the communities and not a great deal of time in the office, the physical office of the Premier. I have also spent a lot of time thinking about my role as an elected leader and the style of leadership that I provide and I also don't provide. There is a certain approach that I take in the work I do. It has not changed much in all the years that I have been providing my share of leadership to the people that I represent. I've served 16 years in the legislature and the entire time I've been a Member of the Cabinet, 12 years as a Minister and four years as a Premier.

Recent developments and events have buoyed me very much. After years of fighting and struggling to get attention, to get the respect and some attention and commitment to deal with the issues that are put in front of this country, I believe that the base and the foundation that we require to address and get these to conclusion are in place. We have a current Prime Minister who is committed, his government and his office, to concluding devolution and revenue sharing. We have the incoming Prime Minister, who I believe will be Mr. Paul Martin, who has committed to us that there will be a net fiscal benefit included in revenue-sharing talks.

We have made a rather dramatic change in our discussions with De Beers, clarified some rather confusing moments and statements recently and I believe I am now back on track, assuring our territory, our government, our people, that we will get a share of diamond production from Snap Lake and that the project will proceed on time.

I believe that the pipeline that we've been talking about and discussing and promoting in the South over the last three and a half years will proceed according to plan with our conditions and demands met over the next few years. The oil and gas development and the companies and industry are set to give a fair deal, a balanced approach to our communities and our people.

I believe that the lobbying we've been doing as a government, as Members of the legislature, on infrastructure will see results in the next while, thanks to the work of Minister Handley, Minister Antoine, other Members of Cabinet and you, the Members of the legislature; the business community and the Chamber of Commerce, amongst many.

Our economy, Mr. Speaker, is the envy of everyone in Canada. Those of you that have followed the Globe and Mail, the national newspaper, in the last few weeks realize, although it started a bit inadvertently by statements on my part in my attempt to get attention. We did get attention, we got a lot of attention, but more than anything we got understanding from the media, from politicians, from industry and corporations right across this country. They know what it is we're saying, they know what we want and they know it is reasonable and that it should happen.