Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I want to say to the Minister and his officials that this is a new department. It's going through its growing pains, formalizing this new department. Certainly, I would like to see some improvements in terms of the measurements in terms of our regional office being supported much more than they have received in the past.

This human resources direction that was taken, I understand and I will give some of the issues being brought forward some time. It has to go through this

process here in terms of making an effective department for the people in the North here. I am not too sure what type of measurements will have in terms of putting it in place. This should be in place by this certain date. Our staff is being relied upon to make this happen for the government and also for the Minister and department so that he can come back with some good news in terms of how well this Human Resources department is moving along.

Madam Chair, the other part I want to see, and I am not too sure, again, in terms of the measurements or the end results in terms of what type of provisions are in place, what type of goals are in place to improve the senior management for people who are qualified to move forward in different career paths in their life and the affirmative action policy is adhered to and followed. Is there some type of benchmark or percentage that senior management in Human Resources within this whole territorial government is being supported and approved? I am not seeing too much of senior management under the affirmative action or haven't had aboriginal people fill those types of positions. I am a little bit concerned in that area. Basically, we'll see what type of avenues that we can play a part in developing this new Human Resources department, looking at the type of support that it is giving to the regional bodies that are having these service centres in our communities and also at the headquarters here. I guess I will be looking for that in terms of what type of avenue that we have, as MLAs, to make suggestions to the Minister on certain parts of this overall role of the Human Resources department.

Madam Chair, the direction that I hope this department is taking in terms of supporting our communities, workers, and the employees of the GNWT, we talk about the proposed Mackenzie gas project. Is there any type of action plan to keep our good employees? We have some high paying companies come up here to swipe some of our good employees that are in government because we put the pressure on the oil companies to start paying our people good wages to get them on board on their ship. I am not too sure how much ship jumping there will be in this department. I guess I am looking somewhere to that. I know it is going to be a challenge for our government because sometimes these oil companies have some pretty fantastic benefits, such as Imperial Oil. They have some pretty good benefits. That is our competition with our government. We are also putting pressure on the Minister and his department to hire people and retain them. Our population in the North is well over half aboriginal people. We are also putting pressure on them to start seeing some senior management who fall under the affirmative action policy. We certainly want to see our own people in the small communities for role modeling for whatever purpose. I am a little biased in that sense, Madam Chair, in terms of ensuring that we have a good percentage of senior management that have aboriginal ancestry, but also that can do the job and are qualified to do the job. How do we support them in the system that we don't continue hiring from outside the North here in terms of consulting work that has been done in the Northwest Territories? I hear a lot that it is done outside the North by firms in Alberta or somewhere else. We have good people, so I think I want to leave it at that, Madam Chair.

I know it is going to be a difficult choice on some of the Minister's part because of limited funding and the pressure that we have on him to measure up to good results. I am going to give some support to the Minister and some grace time for the Minister to take over this new department and really work with it. I want to give him as much support as possible to make sure that we have a really good direction and strong support for him to improve the human resources. It is a brand-new department that is being looked at. I know there are a lot of people out there that would give us their opinion on how it should be done. I don't really know everything, so I am speaking without very much evidence or knowledge on this whole human resource.

I know, if we treat people well, we treat them good with decency and respect, they are going to work good for you. That is the basic law of working with people and gives them the leverage. There are some people that you really need to encourage in terms of doing good work. These are basic working principles of having good people work for you, and support them. I am going to leave it at that, my opening comments, Madam Chair, that the Minister certainly has my support in working on this issue here in hoping that he comes back with some good results that would be beneficial to not only our department, but also for the people of the Northwest Territories to say, yes, the Northwest Territories government is a good place to work with. They treat us well, and they do have a great attitude towards their people they are employing. So there is no ship jumping when they have the Mackenzie gas project or any other type of exploration activities coming to the North that they may be in competition with. I am going to leave it at that, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.