Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome you, Mr. Chairman, to your role as chair of Committee of the Whole. Speaking to the Premier’s sessional statement, I’ve got a number of areas that I wanted to cover. First and foremost, I’m very happy to be back here and happy to be back in my role as a Regular Member of this House. I’m also looking forward to my role as the chair of the Economic Development and Infrastructure committee and the role that I’ll play in hopefully steering the decisions of the government.

I think, for me, and a lot of folks have worked with me in the past, my style is I like to mix things up a little bit; I like to try to get things done. I’m not a guy that tolerates complacency very much. I think, you know, I’ve seen government operate for a while now and I think a lot of times it’s an issue of the old adage of the tail wagging the dog. I think early on in the mandate of this 16th Legislative

Assembly, I really think that the government has to grab the bureaucracy by the horns and start steering this ship. Four years goes by so fast and I think as a group, you know, I’m really full of positive energy, Mr. Chairman, in

the fact that I believe wholeheartedly that if we work together, we can achieve some very good things.

I’ve had discussions with my colleagues on this side of the House -- there are 11 of us here, and there are seven Cabinet Ministers across the way -- and we have a profound amount of power in this style of government and a profound influence on how things can and should happen. When Regular Members on this side of the House want to make things happen, we’re going to try our best to make things happen. I really believe strongly in that, Mr. Chairman; we have to be decisive. You know, I’m not interested in babysitting the government. We’re here to make decisions; we’re here to be leaders and I think it’s time to shake things up.

The morale in the public service is going down; it’s in the toilet. We have to rescue that. We have to show the public service that this is a government that’s not going to let them stifle under managers who won’t let them do anything, or managers who won’t let them do their jobs. Do you know why they don’t want to let them do their jobs? It’s because when they let them do their jobs, that means they might have to do something. That’s not the kind of government we should be operating here. It’s not the kind of government that should allow middle managers to become nothing more than contract administrators. We’ve got 5,500 employees. There are a number of them out there, Mr. Chairman, who are waiting anxiously for a government that is going to grab people and make them accountable. This is the government that can do that. We have all the power here, so let’s do that. Let’s empower people in the public service to do their jobs. You know, too many people telling people what to do. I really think that it has to start with us. That’s why I’m so excited about this zero-based review, positions, budgeting. Let’s start at ground zero.

In the Minister’s sessional statement he makes…“We have demonstrated we can govern responsibly and make good use of our resources.” Well, to me that’s a debatable statement. I don’t know if we’re making good use of our resources, because I don’t exactly know if every dollar we’re spending is being spent in an area where it should be spent. There are so many demands on our resources today that unless we go through an exercise like that, we won’t know where exactly the best bang for our dollar is. Everybody knows. Everybody’s got concerns: transportation infrastructure, public infrastructure, youth, there’s health and education. There are a number of issues that are out there that are pressing and urgent to our constituents. It’s important that we try to find resources somehow, someway, to address those main priorities. I think we can do that, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to talk a little bit about devolution. In my mind, what I’ve seen are the losses just keep stacking up. The last government had a number of losses that keep piling up. I mean, we’ve got devolution and resource revenue so connected, intertwined and connected that I think we’re missing some big opportunities. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again today, that I believe we have to start hiving off areas where we can target and we can get wins. You look back -- transportation, health -- we got some wins. I mean, health is costing us a lot of money today but, you know, it’s our responsibility, Mr. Chairman. I believe oil and gas, mining, the environment, those are some things that maybe we should just start concentrating our efforts in certain areas. Oil and gas is perhaps the biggest one. I mean, we’re on the verge of a $10 billion pipeline down

the very spine of our territory and if we’re not out there negotiating specifically on that and getting responsibility, getting revenues for that, then we’re missing the boat because we’re just grouping everything together. I know I asked the Premier last year what he thought it cost the government to negotiate devolution over the years that we have been talking about this. It is probably a staggering amount, 25, 30, 40 million dollars. That is money that we will never get back. In my mind, I really believe we have to start targeting areas and going after them so that this government, the 16th Legislative Assembly, when we are

done, do you know what? We can look in the mirror and say, yes, we accomplished some things. If we keep looking at the big picture, I don’t know if we can get there. I just haven’t seen evidence that we are getting any traction there. So let’s get out there. Let’s get some winds so that, at the end of this government, we are not scrambling around looking for something to pin our name to or a legacy project and spending $165 million on a bridge, for example, because the loss has stacked up, because we didn’t have devolution, because we didn’t have resource revenue sharing. We need to get some wins. We need to get them early on, Mr. Chair.

The cost of living, too, is a big issue for many of my constituents and many other Members that I have talked to in their ridings. In part to the devolution negotiations, and I could never understand why it wasn’t part of the negotiations, but to try to get Ottawa to establish a permanent trust fund in the Northwest Territories based on revenues coming out of the oil and gas and you could include mining in that, as well. In the state of Alaska, they have a permanent trust fund and every year that permanent trust fund pays anywhere between $800 and $2,400 to every man, woman and child in the state of Alaska. There are 700,000 people in the State of Alaska. There are 44,000 here in the Northwest Territories. There is no way that we should just be sitting idly by watching our resources slip through our fingers with nothing to help future generations, my kids, my kids’ grandkids. We should be looking at setting up something like that. If you want to talk about a legacy, that would be something that I am sure this Premier and the government would love to have their name associated with the establishment of a trust fund. We shouldn’t give up on that.

Not being the Premier or being a Cabinet Minister, you are not party to all of the negotiations that are going on. You don’t get to see…You can tell the Premier, well, I really think you should pursue this, but, at the end of the day, you really don’t know how he is pursuing it or how the government is pursuing it. You just take it for granted that, well, I told them about it. Maybe they will do something. On this file, I really do believe we have to make some demands of the federal government to set this up.

The other issue, too, I never really fully understood why, if there is a dispute -- and obviously there is a dispute between the federal government and the Government of the Northwest Territories on resource royalties -- why would we not negotiate all of those royalties that are being paid to Ottawa go into a trust and are set aside until such a time as the political evolution of this territory is at such a state where groups and the Government of the Northwest Territories and other governments here can access those funds? I don’t understand why we wouldn’t be solely concentrating right in or zero in on that. Get our lawyers working on that. There is a dispute at play. There are

resource royalties that are being paid to the federal government coming out of the soil here in the Northwest Territories rightfully belonging to the citizens of the Northwest Territories and we should be demanding that the federal government put those aside until we have settled our differences. What is it going to hurt the federal government? They have a $14 billion surplus. Set it aside. We should be hammering on the desks saying that that should happen. And then you want to see a resolution to land claims? You want to believe it. Land claims would be resolved. There would be a pot of money that would be accruing every year. In order to get access to that, the governments would have to come up with some kind of agreement on cost sharing or revenue sharing and I believe that is the key to the future here is those resource royalties. We need to be going there. We need to be doing that.

I think that is probably about it, Mr. Chair. Again, I wanted to mention that I am very positive about the role that Members have in this government. I know we are new. We are just coming in here, the sessional statement. I know we are not fully through our strategic plan and our vision for the next four years, but I am excited about the opportunities that are out there. I am excited about our people. I am excited about the opportunity to work with my colleagues here, the new Cabinet, my colleagues on this side of the House. Let’s get at it and let’s get something done. Mahsi.