Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Four years ago I asked for this job because I believed I could make a contribution to running a government and maybe I could even make a difference. I asked for this job because I believed my community was heading into an era of huge, new opportunities. We would be challenged not only by how we managed these opportunities themselves, but also how we managed the impacts on our way of life. I believe that our system of governing, as we fondly call it this consensus system, was not serving us well. I wanted to see what I could do to advance the issues of accountability, responsiveness and confidence in government. I believed, Mr. Speaker, that the new NWT -- and it was only a few months old then, back in 1999 -- could really break through. We could really be a have territory, we could be moving mountains on the land claim and self-government front, and we could be turning the corner on a shameful litany of social ills, abuse and crime.
Our performance after four years has predictably been a mix of highs and lows on all fronts. I won't go into an inventory of all those issues and what we did, that's all a matter of record, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to engaging in these issues with my constituents in the days ahead. Rather, I'd like to address the areas of economy, of leadership and community. These are the three planks that I ran on four years ago and I would like to take this time to account for what has happened since December of 1999. More important, I believe, is that I want to look forward to see how we can manage these issues ahead.
Opportunities must be seized where they occur, and I believe that is what Yellowknife has done. We have seen our government, through the leadership of the Premier and the Ministers, set terms on diamond allocations that has stimulated well over $10 million in sorting and cutting plant investment and 100 new jobs in Yellowknife. In the next few years, Mr. Speaker, we can see this double and we can see it move into other NWT communities, as well, and we should be looking for other ways of capitalizing on the diamond boom and add to the diversity of this amazing gift of nature.
Mr. Speaker, we're in the midst of a long-anticipated sunset of Yellowknife's gold mining industry. This brings with it disruption to jobs, to families and, of course, to our economy. But is also brings the responsibility to manage it properly in human terms and for the environment, and this includes the enormous task and the investment required in cleaning up two of Canada's oldest producing mines.
Our city has enjoyed the prosperity of unprecedented growth in stores and services and business, it's brought new competition and benefits to consumers, and we've seen our volunteer sector grow, Mr. Speaker. We've seen added new activities and sports and cultural venues grow in the city, and I believe we are a larger, stronger, more stable and more diverse community.
The latest in a series of achievements in land claims and self-government is before us. It is coming into force with the Tlicho government over the next decade with four neighbouring communities to Yellowknife. We'll have the tools to become the unified nation they have worked so hard for. This can only be a new opportunity for this community, as well, for I believe our joint prosperity is linked. And look, Mr. Speaker, we're finally going to get that road finished and we're actually going to get a bridge built; finally.
We've seen remarkable growth in housing in this community. The private sector has responded vigorously to the need, but we're still faced with the enormous challenge of affordability. It is crushing for many of our families and workers in low and middle-income brackets, and if we are to sustain our growth and success we've got to put housing at the front our agenda.
Housing, Mr. Speaker, is only one of the problem consequences of the boom. There are many others. We see a disturbing upwards spiral in domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, family neglect and crime. Careless and risky behaviour especially among our youth is epidemic. We find ourselves telling our children and visitors to the city to stay away from the downtown area after 10:00. We all share a sense of shame and frustration at this, Mr. Speaker. What can we do to take back our town? Several dozen, I think perhaps a couple hundred of us, walked one evening just a few weeks ago in the Take Back the Night march led by the NWT Status of Women Council. We can also look forward to actions like that of the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition, the coalition for community wellness, new work by the RCMP as ways that can make a difference. As a community we must realize that we have to take ownership of this crisis if we are to solve it.
Our government in this area has to catch up with its own record of neglect, Mr. Speaker. For too many years we have denied our communities across the NWT the investment and hard work that should have gone into the prevention and treatment and follow-up programs to tackle the issues of abuse and violence. My constituents have told me absolutely clearly the social agenda is the priority for the next government.
Mr. Speaker, when we go to the polls on November 24th we'll be electing the territorial decision-makers for the next four years. These MLAs will be using what we call the consensus government system as their way to make those decisions. One of the reasons I ran four years ago was because I felt this system wasn't up to its fullest potential, it was sluggish, it was bogged down with having to make too many compromises and trying to accommodate too many agendas to be responsive and agile in our fast-moving territory. If we were to take a poll to test the level of confidence and trust that our people have in us, I think we'd find, Mr. Speaker, that we're losing a lot of ground; in fact, we might well find that we're underground. Indeed, I see voter turnout slipping steadily over the past several years, and that alone is a significant measure of how much we count.
We've seen other signals that pass judgment on our consensus system. The NDP, the New Democratic Party, have twice floated the scenario of bringing party politics in to advance their agenda through a slate of candidates. More recently, a business-based coalition has tested the party process as a way of getting us to pay attention to what is seen as a fundamental weakness, a lack of accountability. We should not dismiss either of these, Mr. Speaker. They are strong messages from voters trying to tell us that we're not delivering on their expectations of due government.
So what do we do about it? I suggest two approaches. One is to look in our own backyard, Mr. Speaker, and address the way we manage governance with our own boards and agencies and departments. I look with dismay at how we blew up two of our most senior boards -- the Power Corporation and the Stanton Territorial Hospital -- and I believe this is a result of our failure to govern properly on our part. If we are to really see some progress, we have to take aggressive measures, Mr. Speaker, we have to cut back and streamline the number of boards and agencies we've created. We should not be hesitant about realigning and redistributing our own departments to suit our changing needs. We need to address capacity, communication, monitoring and compliance, and reset our directions. After all, we've been building this government, basically from scratch, for the last 30 years. Some of it isn't working. The status quo is not an option. Let's rebuild.
Here in this legislature, we need to rethink the way we do business, Mr. Speaker. The past four years, I believe, have seen walls and barriers developed between our Cabinet, our Caucus and the committees. We've seen too many arbitrary decisions and reactions, and a breakdown in collaboration way outside the sphere of intended consensus. We have hobbled ourselves. We can do better through a new approach to governance.
Mr. Speaker, my second approach is to give the voters of the Northwest Territories more of a say in who the leadership would be for the Northwest Territories. One aspect of our election system is that the voter has little on which to pin his or her expectations, other than the track record and the reputation of the candidates in their riding. We can't make pledges, we can't make promises as individual candidates, Mr. Speaker, we can't pledge accountability when things don't go our way. We're only one of 19 Members who will be in this House. What can we do to give the voter more to go on when they go to the polls? My approach is to focus on the gap that exists between the voter and how our leadership is chosen.
Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, when I look at a newly-elected provincial government it's with a little bit of envy, that's because the day they get elected and voted into office, they have a mandate from a majority of their people on what to do. They can start on day one to fulfill their promises, with a leadership regime that's already tested and together.
Our consensus approach in reality is the reverse of this. We form an Assembly after the election as a group more or less of strangers. We select our Premier and Cabinet almost entirely on good faith, with a regional mix for geopolitical reasons thrown in and, Mr. Speaker, we do this almost entirely in secret. These MLAs then become the government. They then try to assemble together with all the MLAs to present a collective vision and a mandate for the next four years. In short, Mr. Speaker, in an Assembly we wander in the woods for about three months before we can really sit down to the task of governing with a direction that we can have some agreement on, and all of this time the voter has had no say or influence in who these people are going to be in government or what the vision and the objective is going to be. It's no wonder that they challenge our accountability.
What are the remedies? There are many options to look at. Indeed, Members of the 12th Assembly back in 1994 looked at these very issues, and couldn't break through or at least not without tricky challenges to election law and practice and convention.
Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to offer some sweeping new revelation or some enormous bold new move. I think things like this have to be taken in measured, careful steps.
A solution in this is to issue a challenge to any would-be Premier to declare their interest in the office now. Don't wait until after the election and our secret process here. Don't hide in the midst of that process that we have used in the past. I challenge those candidates to say now that they want the job and what they plan to do in the job. I want to know their priorities, their values and their ideas, and so do the voters, Mr. Speaker. They deserve to know this in the full openness of an election campaign, so that when I go door to door and seek my constituents' views, we will have something new and exciting to talk about: who the next leader could be. It's the kind of discussion that we've never been able to have at the door or in our meetings before in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker, and I believe it's time we do. It will enable me to bring the voice of the voter into the ballot box that will be sitting on this floor in December.
Mr. Speaker, this is not a difficult step. It requires no changes in rules or new convention, no consensus of opinion. The hard part is for those candidates who believe they can and could be the next Premier, to step outside of that comfort zone, that secret zone that we've created here, and take their ideas to the door.
Mr. Speaker, I've talked about this idea a lot in the past few months. Some people who have listened to it have called it the start of party politics. It's a slippery slope that we want to avoid, and indeed I do not want party politics. But you know, I think there's another aspect to it. I think we could look at it as something that we already know and that we're already very familiar with here in the NWT and across Canada, because this is the way, isn't it, that we elect our mayors and our chiefs in our towns and villages and cities, the way we elect our band councils and the leaders of our First Nations. The voter deserves a chance to say who the leader is going to be. I think this is a way that we could advance that in our next election.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that this is a job I truly like. I like getting up in the morning and coming to work here, or maybe somewhere else in the city or in another community in the NWT or Canada, and seeing what's new. Believe me, there's always something new. The satisfaction from being involved in the teamwork and seeing results. Most gratifying is when a constituent facing an issue asks for help and I can make a difference, and I've had that satisfaction many, many times.
Mr. Speaker, these results aren't gained by working alone. We're well served by a staff of professionals. Living a life by political rules, public law is not to be taken lightly, and here again we have our clerks and administration backup to see us through. We've been ably served by our Conflict of Interest Commissioner, the Honourable Ted Hughes, and I thank him for his respectful, steady guidance.
Many of our issues involve some level of bureaucracy in working with staff, and I thank those people especially for their patience, and sometimes their tolerance, of a rooky MLA who was trying perhaps a bit too hard to get something done. I've learned a lot about teamwork and some of those lessons haven't been easy in the give and take of debates, discourse here among 19 politicians.
On more than one issue I've often thought to myself how can someone be so stupid about something, and then I realized they probably think exactly the same of me and I feel better or at least perhaps I feel human.
I salute those Members, Mr. Speaker, who are retiring from the political arena: Mr. Kakfwi, Mr. Antoine, Mr. Ootes, and yourself, Mr. Speaker, for my appreciation, my admiration and my expectation that somewhere, sometime we will be seeing each other again in some avenue of public service.
I am especially grateful to my constituency assistant for four years, John Argue. John came to me with almost 30 years of experience in the territorial civil service, and with a volunteer record and a familiarity with this city that I doubt could be matched by anyone. John, you helped me shine in the good days and you polished me up on the not so good ones. I value your loyalty above all. Thank you.
It's to my family that I owe my greatest appreciation and affection. My wife Val and my daughters Rae and Carmen tolerated, comforted and gave me their unflagging confidence. I am especially indebted to my daughters, because if ever I started to sound pompous or fake or, heaven forbid, political about anything, they tackled me hard. I'm blessed to have an extended family here, Mr. Speaker, my mother, three brothers and their families, all of whom accepted my ambitions and the risk that it involved.
It's a great time to be in the NWT and to have the trust of the people in the riding of Great Slave to represent them in this Assembly for the last four years. I hope to return for the next four. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause