Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, throughout the Territories, we have a variety of boards that are dependent on the territorial government. Some of the ones that come to mind are the public utility boards, the health boards and the education boards. These organizations are created to assist the Government of the Northwest Territories in carrying out its mandate.

Knowing this, I am confused as to why some boards are not accountable to the public but are accountable to the Ministers. For example, some of these boards do not hold public meetings. Often internal meetings are held and decisions are made without consulting the public. The public meetings are not held because the board is only accountable to the Ministers. Because of this, complaints and issues have to be brought to the MLAs and dealt with at the Ministerial level when some of these issues could be dealt with at the community level.

A question that is often asked is who are these boards representing? Why are they located only in the larger centers? If they represent the people, why do some boards answer directly to the Minister instead of the people in the communities? Some boards have Members that are elected; others have Members who are appointed. Again, who do they answer to? The Minister or the public? Mr. Speaker, I think that we need to clarify the role of all territorial boards, who they are representative of or accountable to and how the public can provide input into their operations. Mr. Speaker, there are also boards out there who are operating very well, whether they are funded by this government or not. I think we need to look at all the boards and make changes so we can help all Northerners to do their jobs and they can help us represent the public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause