Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just take a few minutes to give my thanks to many people who make it possible for me to be here today. First of all, I would like to thank my constituents for giving me their trust to serve them as their MLA for the last eight years. It is an honour like no other. I don't think there is any other...I don't even think you can call this a job. It is something that is possibly a democratic system that we have where on election day, the people across the NWT go out and put an X next to the names of people that are here. It is a complete honour. It is a trust. When you are elected into this office, it is a daunting task. Even to this day, every day, I am in awe of what the people of Range Lake have given to me for the last eight years.
I remember walking in here as the class of 1999 with Mr. Bell, yourself, Mr. Speaker, Premier Handley -- there were six of us -- Mr. Braden and myself. I remember looking at my job and going, what am I supposed to do in this job? I know I got elected and there is no manual. There is no script to follow. I remember having to think really hard about how I do my job to the best of my ability. The way I thought about it was like the people gave me this little baby, something so precious, something so honourable that I had to grow into the job. I had to become wiser, intelligent, articulate and more than anything that I ever thought possible. We all have to grow to the job and do the best we can because the people who elect us should not be burdened because or our limitations, our boundaries or lack of anything. I tried my best to do that. People of Range Lake continue to give me support. I am always in awe of that honour. I will be seeking a new mandate. I will save all of the stuff about what I have been able to do and what I would like to do for the future. I am very optimistic about the future of the North. I look forward to that debate.
Mr. Speaker, I do want to acknowledge the Members of this House. I know there is a public persona of the Members here, but the people I know here, I believe to the bottom of my heart that we are all here with honourable intentions. We all come here every day trying to do the best we can. We learn all about our weaknesses and strengths. I know lots of Members here remind me all of the time, in the second Assembly anyway, from the first one, I came in here shooting with both cylinders or speaking before thinking and just totally enthusiastic and seeing everything in black and white. I have grown so much into the job. It has just been an amazing work experience. I would not have been able to do that without having such generous people and the Members that I have had to work with. I thank you all, the Members, for giving me so much guidance for the last eight years.
I do want to wish well Mr. Bell, Mr. Handley and Mr. Braden, who are leaving and seeking other opportunities. That is my class of 1999 I wanted to acknowledge. And Mr. Dent. I don't want to go over all of the strengths of the Members. You have been great. I know you have given all your best. I know that you all are going to continue to serve. The North is going to benefit from that. I wish you and your family nothing but the best.
I want to acknowledge my committee members. I had the honour of being the chair of the Social Programs committee this Assembly, Mr. Speaker. When I first came here as a female Member trying to prove myself, I really wanted to stay away from the pink committee, so the last Assembly I made sure I got into Governance and Economic Development committee. But in this Assembly, I knew it was important work, I wanted to do it and I was honoured to be a chair of this committee. The six members in my committee, Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. McLeod, Mr. Lafferty who came on board later, Mr. Pokiak and Mr. Braden. I keep forgetting Mr. Braden.
---Laughter
It has been a real pleasure to work with all of you who I think we did a lot of good work together. We always had a very good working relationship. We put through a lot of really heavy-duty legislation like the Public Health Act. I don't want to go into all that, but it has been a total pleasure. I learned a lot from all of you. I thank you very much.
I want to, in particular, thank the staff of the Legislative Assembly, not only the committee but the entire staff. I think Mr. Mercer has an amazing group of staff he has built now. I would like to thank Mr. Mercer and everybody: Tanis and Haylee in his shop who are working in the back there; Mr. Moreside, Ms. Freisen, Ms. Menard and all of the staff in the finance section. I couldn't even begin to think how much work is involved in there. I don't think I give them as much work as some of the other Members, but I think they do a lot of work. I really want to thank them. In particular, Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank my committee staff, Ms. Bennett, sitting here. She came to us from the court services. I think losing her was the bigger blow to the judges than losing the courthouse.
---Laughter
Ms. Bennett came into our committee about a year into this Assembly. She fit in without any fuss. She has been a total professional and a woman of competence; she gets the job done. It's just been amazing and I would not have been able to do the work that we do in committee without the level of skills and just everyday just doing the job. I cannot thank her enough.
Mr. Robert Collinson, our researcher for the committee, I still maintain that he's completely underpaid. I think he should get paid $10 for every word that he puts into our report that makes our committee's work very intelligent. He expresses the views that we hear from the people, what we want to say. Mr. Robert Collinson is only one of the entire research staff under the leadership of Colette
Langlois, our director, and they really, really, single-handedly make our work possible. I have to tell you that some of the Members here who remember when I came here, you might have described me as a leader looking for a team, or maybe a lone ranger looking for a team, and working through the Social Programs committee, working with the staff that I have, with Ms. Bennett and Mr. Collinson, Mr. Glen Boyd, our legal advisor, I really think I found a team where I was able to be a leader of a team and I think together with the committee Members and our staff, we have been able to do some really, really good work. I'm very proud of the work we have done as a Standing Committee on Social Programs.
Mr. Speaker, the last person that I must thank is my constituency assistant, Cathy Olson. I first met Cathy Olson in the year 2000 when her family came into town. She and another lady named Janet Pacey started a magazine called "Yellowknife Living," and I was just so excited about there being a magazine called "Yellowknife Living." I thought any two women who would put their heads together to write a magazine have to be really driven. I met her then and I agreed to put an ad in the Yellowknife Living magazine from day one and I asked her if she could come and work for me at the same time. At the time she had lots of obligations with her family and she wanted to put that off. About three years ago she was able to free herself to come and work for me and it has been three amazing years of experience. She is a woman who like...Very few people I know who I can talk with about what's happening on CNN, what's happening with the U.S. national politics, we can talk about what's happening there, how to do the quilting, what's happening at Range Lake North School, what's happening to the teenage life, we can talk about dogs, we can talk about weather. She just knows...She's one who's as interested about life and things as I am and it's just been a complete and total pleasure to work with her. She's given me motherly advice, sisterly advice, political advice, personal advice. She works really well under pressure. We work really well together in crisis mode and I could not have done my job without her. I really want to give her thanks, and her family. All of her family has been involved in my work and I know there's lots going on in her life and her family life, and I just want to thank her very much for all that she has given me and I do hope that we can continue to have a working relationship.
Mr. Speaker, in parting, I want to just talk about two things that I think are really exciting and important. The first thing is that the Legislative Assembly is going to have its own dedicated television channel. It's something that I've always asked for and I'm so excited that it's coming to fruition in the very near future, possibly this upcoming session after October. I believe that young people, all the people in the North but especially the young people have to see their lives and their community reflected on television. I think you have to be a minority in a mainstream society to see how important that is. For the mainstream society, they take it for granted that when they turn on the movie, they turn on the news, they see people that look like them. But for the aboriginal population or the visible minority population, we take it for granted that it's okay not to see themselves on television, whether it's on the political channel, in movies, on the news, a soap opera, whatever. For that reason, that main reason, I just think that it will do a great deal of good to have a community channel where our northern people, especially the northern news, to see themselves on a television channel. For the young, community channel 20 is no different than any other fancy U.S. network channel: you're on television and you're a star. I think every child should feel like they're a star and they should see themselves debating in the House, not debating in the House but in the sporting events, in the cultural events. We could not only have these sessions of the Legislative Assembly showing on television, but also a Beluga Jamboree in Tuktoyaktuk, Mackenzie Days in Fort Providence or the Dene Assemblies. I think we as a community, as a whole in the Territories, need to have a television channel that connects together, that enables us to express ourselves as a distinct and unique cultural group of people, but also very diverse, where all the communities could come together. Yellowknifers could see people and cultural activities in other communities and other communities could also see the people in Yellowknife. So I am so excited about that channel and I will encourage the next Assembly -- and I hope to be part of it -- if my people in Range Lake send me back I want to make sure that even the committee meetings are reflected on this channel so that we get to be more transparent in the work that we do.
The second thing I want to say, Mr. Speaker, is we all know that there is an election coming up on October 1st and there are lots of people who are interested in running. I think it's great that there are a lot of people running because it speaks to the citizenship participation, it allows for vigorous debates of important issues of the day and, most importantly, it gives the people a chance to vote for a number of choices that are available. As one of the longer serving Members in this House, I've been getting a lot of calls from people who are interested in running for office, and in responding to those inquiries I realized that there is something lacking in the consensus government that is present in the party politics. I know in lots of replies to opening addresses in the last few days, many Members have spoken about the benefit of consensus government versus party politics. If this is an issue, and it is usually an issue during every election, I look forward to that debate, but the small element of that was my realization that we, under the consensus government, there is no means to involve the people, to educate them or to provide support for anyone who wants to run for public office. People come into this place and connect with this place at a personal level, whether people were here as young Pages or they have parents who are MLAs or government people, but I think in the interests of the wellness of this Assembly, and in the interests of attracting as many good calibre candidates as possible, I think it is very important for this Assembly in going forward to provide a packaged training program for youth, for anyone, to teach them about how the consensus government works; what should one do if they're interested in the political process. I've been working closely with women who are wanting to run for office but I have found there's a need for that for the young people, for anybody who's interested in the process. I would really like to encourage the Legislative Assembly to look into that. I know that the NWT office is working on that but I think it's something where we need to broaden our base to see if we can do a better job.
Mr. Speaker, on that note, I would just like to close by thanking my constituents again, and thank everybody here for making me a much better person than when I started here. I think we've done some really good work together and I would like to wish everyone all the best in the coming days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause