Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Members for making their comments on this. A number of comments saying they would liked to have seen more to this. Purposely it was as it was because we have yet to complete the work of the 16th Assembly and in the spirit of working together, I felt,

and my Cabinet colleagues felt, it wouldn’t be appropriate if we started to say this is where we think we need to go. We do realize there are 11 votes on the other side of the floor that has a significant impact on us in the decision-making we make. We are 19 Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly and our work in the next four years will dictate what our children and grandchildren will have to look forward to in the Northwest Territories. Many good points raised. Many initiatives that are worthwhile and should have attention put to them. A number of good things have been said. For example, Mr. Beaulieu talked about targeting. We need to focus our expenditures in a number of areas and he used youth as an area. We’ve heard about effective and efficient government. We’ve heard about zero-based review or program review. We’ve also looked at taking a common sense approach to the decision-making we will make. The old adage if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. The other comment is a major infrastructure problem that is brewing. That is more true than a lot of Members are aware of. Mr. Bromley raised a number of issues in looking at the decision we make and the question of how can we have the greatest impact of four years and beyond. I think that is going to be quite a shift for a government to look beyond its four-year mandate and look to the decisions it makes and how it impacts on our children and our grandchildren.

So there are a lot of areas to do. Mrs. Groenewegen mentioned taking one step at a time. I agree. We have an opportunity, and another point she mentioned is an opportunity to effect change. If we are really truly going to effect change in government, it is not by a shotgun approach to the issues we are going to have before us. We, as an Assembly, I believe if we are going to make directional change in how the government looks and how it delivers on programs, we are going to have to pick a number of specific areas, focussed areas and focus our attention and achieve on those areas, achieve a measurable increase in the level of service or delivery of a program or the results that we have. Once we achieve those, then we can shift and go through a next set of priorities. But I have also been part of governments who have come in with a very broad agenda and trying to be everything to everybody. When you talk about investing in

the people of the Northwest Territories, to try to see what we have actually done, that is one of the reasons I believe why it did take so long to measure results within a government. I, too, when I first got into this role as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, came down here, as I told people in my constituency, coming down with fire in my belly and I am going to make some changes. I was disappointed to see how long it took government to change. It still takes a long time to change things, but with the work of 19 Members and some focussed attention, we can start to make a significant difference in how we see things change for the people we represent in the Northwest Territories. We are going to have to be focussed. We are going to have to make some difficult choices. What areas do we want to see as a priority? Then we are going to have to agree. Those other areas that aren’t as high a priority are going to have to take second tier, in a sense, in some of that decision-making or the available dollars we would have to us.

We have made changes in the past. Governments have reacted in the past to the fiscal pressures they faced, so an easy task, for example, would be for us to say if we are having challenges, let’s just set a target of four percent. We hear that number of forced growth. Or, for example, the first budget of the 15th Assembly, it was a target

reduction that all departments had to go and meet a specific target reduction. That is the easy way to do business, because departments can go back into their systems and their silos, as Members have talked about from time to time, and make changes to their existing programming. If we are going to affect change, we are going to have to look at how we deal with things. Youth is not just a Municipal and Community Affairs and sports issue. It is not just an Education, Culture and Employment issue. We see youth in our education systems and our justice systems and our health and social service systems and in the sporting area. It is going to have to be an approach that we take. We are going to have to set that direction about how we approach it across the table, not just one Minister and one department, but a number of Ministers and a number of departments to start to make some significant change. That is the type of government I would like to be a part of. I hope that is the type of government Members would like to be a part of. So when we sit down to finalize our plan, our footprint, our handprint in the Government of the Northwest Territories 16th Assembly and affect change, we do have an

opportunity. It is an exciting time. We can make a difference. We can make some changes happen sooner rather than later. But it will depend on the choices we have. There is a need for us to speak with one voice in the North, one voice from aboriginal governments, community governments, territorial governments and the message we send. There has to be some recognition from all parties that we can sit, and I picture this and I try to use visual things.

When we talk about devolution and resource revenue sharing, it used to be termed in the 12th Assembly, I

believe, as the Northern Accord. It has since turned to devolution and resource revenue sharing. Can we say, as the past governments, and are we as willing, as the 16th Assembly, to sit there and continue to have discussion and not move forward when we know the pressures we are under to try to deliver programs and services in our communities? I would say that we have an opportunity to make a change, but we can’t keep on trying to push the same old truck out of the ditch that all we have been able

to do…If you have been stuck in a ditch in the Northwest Territories in the wintertime and you don’t have a tow truck to pull you out and you are pushing up a hill, you tend to spin your tires and weave a little bit sideways along the edge of the ditch without really getting out onto the road. That has been our problem. We need to get out of the ditch and onto the road so we can make some progress. Some good roads, yes.

---Laughter

Building a solid foundation for the future should be our goal, not about what will happen at the end of four years. If we do our job right, the four years will take care of themselves, and the people will recognize us for those decisions that we make.

I look forward to working with Members in the next number of days when we sit down and finalize our goals as the 19 Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly where

we can go and steer the ship and where we can make a difference. I want to be a part of that team. I hope we can work together in delivering that. I also realize there are going to be some times when we make those tough choices. You are going to ask the tough questions about why we did this. Is this the best way to do it? Sometimes we are all going to have to accept the lesser of two evils may be the best choice. That would be the difficult time. It is going to be the political will around this House that is going to make a difference. If we don’t have that political will, I will guarantee you, we will be talking about the same issues at the end of our term as we start talking about at the beginning of our term. So the political will, we have that authority as I have heard Members. I agree. We do have that ability, but it will take working together and that is not as easy as said, but I am willing to be a part of that decision-making process of building a better Northwest Territories for our children and their grandchildren. Thank you very much.

---Applause