Me? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I liked the sessional statement. I enjoyed listening to it and I enjoyed reading it afterwards, but I also agree with the comments of my colleagues. There are some areas that obviously I and we feel could have been a little bit stronger. For me, I am not going to go over what my colleagues have already gone over, but there are a couple of areas that I wanted to address, as well.

On page 5 during the statement, you said it’s important that we have an effective and efficient government. This is critical to me. Our employees are our most valuable resources. Without them, we have nothing. Without them, we will get nothing done. It’s important that they’re healthy and happy in the workplace, so they can be as effective and efficient as possible. We’ve heard, and we continue to hear, about morale issues in the government. I felt that it would have been stronger if you had mentioned more about supporting the public service and creating that healthy and effective work environment. They are our most valuable resource. They are the people who get the work done. I would have liked to have seen some more on how we can create that efficient and effective government that you talk about.

I would also like to have seen a little bit more in there on the voluntary sector. I firmly believe the voluntary sector adds a significant amount of value to the well-being and community of the Northwest Territories. The voluntary sector provides a lot of services and they are able to be very responsive to the people, the people that we serve as well. So I would like to have seen some additional reference in here to the voluntary sector.

Another area that is obviously important to me and close to my heart is art, tourism and culture. We have an amazing territory with many talented people. We have brilliant musicians, we have fantastic painters, craftspeople, writers. They are all out there and we need to work with them to promote them. We need to get their

names out and we need to have them as our champions for showing them what this territory is capable of. On a tourism related point, and I have said it before, if people see and become familiar with the culture and the art and the things that exist, they will come and want to see it. When they are here, they will take advantage of those things. We should be proud of the cultures of the Northwest Territories. We should be proud of the art. So I would have liked to have seen those things in there.

I was very pleased to see the desire to work together with others; aboriginal governments, Members on this side of the room and everybody. So I really liked the statement. Thank you.

---Applause