Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, four years have passed and I'm very proud of all of our time here. There have been certainly some good days and certainly some bad days, as we all know, but I've gained a lot of experience from every one of those challenges that have been put before us and I'd say it's been an incredible time, an incredible ride, Mr. Speaker.
This exciting time could not have been done without the marriage of this new family we've created when we walked through the doors, all 19 Members of us. Some knew each other, some didn't, but we found a way to make it work. Just like all the families out there, they have good days and they have bad days and, you know, we can't pick your family as the constituency picked us, but we found a way to make it work most of the time.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be here as a politician. My interest in politics has gone back a little more than 25 years. The reason I say that is many of you know, or don't know, I am only 36, but I remember tin can TV in Fort Simpson. I certainly remember when we used to have the one channel. I used to watch Parliament on TV. I remember Trudeau, Clark and Broadbent. I used to be great fans of them and so excited to see what they were doing with issues they were discussing.
Mr. Speaker, my interest in territorial politics really came from growing up in and around the Sibbeston house. I still consider myself a great friend of Nick and Karen Sibbeston. I spent many years...I am the same age as...Actually I am in the middle years of two of their children. I spent a lot of time there. I know the family well. We had a lot of good years and certainly the inspiration and the stories I used to hear from Nick growing up certainly inspired me.
Mr. Speaker, my path to politics started seven years ago when I was elected to city council. But just before it began, my wife and I eloped and went to Las Vegas. We got married by Elvis and it was a really exciting time. She had a few more holidays left than me, so I left her in Calgary to finish her holidays and I only had a week holidays. So I had to get right back to Yellowknife. I phoned her. I said, I am going to run for city council. When she was done laughing on the phone, she said, are you really serious? I said, yes. So then she said she would do what she needed to do. So she has been a very supportive wife. I will come back to that in a minute.
Mr. Speaker, I did take that leap. My experience on city council, even with Member Ramsay, we had, again, a lot of good days, a lot of bad days. At the end of the day, it was a wonderful experience. I am glad he left council the same time as I did and we came forward over to this House.
There were a lot of highlights. I don't know if it is worth getting into today, but there are a lot of highlights I would like to talk about. Certainly, I have decided to pare it down to just a couple. The highlights that I would like to think at this time, when I refer to achievements, are the barrier-free apartment building for the disabled. Mr. Speaker, I spent many hours down with Minister Krutko, at the time when he was Housing Minister, nagging him and complaining and whining. He kept saying, go away, go away. I would come down to the House and I would nag him and ask him more questions. He would read these scripted answers that would say go away. But eventually, I have to admit in all seriousness, we had a good working relationship on that project and he heard the need. He heard the need to the point he said we are going to send people out to interview folks and see what really needs to be done. Furthermore, if we can do something, we are going to do something. And he did do that. I am very proud that Minister Krutko is...To me, he heard the concern. He sent people down to understand the problem. Furthermore, he did something. He heard what I was trying to raise. I had constituents there. When they washed their dishes, they had to drape their arms above the water and the conditions in their washroom was absolutely pathetic. He is fixing that problem by moving forward that initiative.
I had another constituent who couldn't reach the countertops. He couldn't cook and an endless amount of problems, but the bottom line is he heard those problems too. This government at that time of little more than three years ago said we are going to fix it. That is one of my personal favourite projects I helped to work on here. I am very thankful. Now, Minister Krutko is no longer Minister of Housing. Minister Handley luckily got to cut the ribbon on that project and it is opening next month. It is a good project. I have always said all along, from the start of it, I think this is a demonstration of good quality work the Housing Corporation can do to meet the needs of people in the NWT, to meet people with disabilities to help improve their quality of life. I really tried hard on that. I am glad to say it is one of my personal hallmarks of success that I will always be able to look back and say that one project alone I think really meant a lot because you can see how happy they were.
Mr. Speaker, there are some things that didn't work out. I am not going to mention a lot of them, but I am going to say when this House passed the motion to put an addictions treatment centre here in Yellowknife and in Inuvik, that was quite a disappointment. Even in motion, I often called them creative suggestions because we're united on this side of the House. We came to identify a need. We came to identify a solution, and I don't want to say Cabinet ignored it, but I don't know how else to put it other than it was ignored.
Mr. Speaker, I hope some day that can be corrected. Another area that I wish we could have made a clear statement on was, again, a personal plea in the sense of I thought it was very important to the fabric of who we are as an Assembly, was I had always hoped that we could have passed the troops motion to support our troops overseas. It was not to be. There were many people who supported it. There were many who didn't and many who found that the wording couldn't be right, so in the end it never came forward. But every Friday, I always wore my red shirt to let our troops know here in Yellowknife, and the message was spread far and wide, that people here do care about the work that they do. Mr. Speaker, one can say, though, with those sorts of things, we can't win them all, but we can certainly win as many as we can.
Mr. Speaker, I am a big fan of consensus government. The longer I am here, the more I think that party politics certainly isn't meant for this place.
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Although I am a firm believer, though, consensus government needs to evolve. It needs to respond to
people's needs. It needs to be reflective of what is going on. Mr. Speaker, I am not saying that changes I suggested last Friday had to take place, but I think what I was really saying when I had my consensus government Member's statement read out, the fact is I just think it needs to be evaluated from time to time. Nothing should go without any type of evaluation because, if we can't stand that test, then maybe we have bigger problems.
Mr. Speaker, I would say to those who want to join party politics in this Assembly, who want to slide it in under the door whether openly or informally, I would say be careful of the wolf in sheep's clothing, Mr. Speaker. I think it will be the demise of this Assembly, the free-flowing communication I think clearly highlighted by Minister Dent, I think yesterday, talks about one of the most amazing elements of our Assembly. If we were in a party style system, as everybody knows in this Assembly -- I think sometimes people forget -- you couldn't bring forward an idea.
I remember when I talked about the idea of developing and coming up with a brand new product for a driver's licence. If we were in a party system assembly, the government would just laugh and say, great idea; when you are in power, go for it. But the government here has suggested from this side of the House. They listen to them. They take them into consideration. That doesn't happen anywhere else in Canada outside of us and Nunavut. I am very thankful and grateful that we have a consensus government.
Pre-project consultations I think have set forward a great statement from this Assembly. All the Regular Members felt that this is an important thing to start talking about what the priorities are of the people of the Northwest Territories, asking them for their input on the budget to make sure it was more reflective of the people. Someday I look forward to the TV broadcasting of our committee meetings. I think that is a fantastic step forward in accountability.
Mr. Speaker, in my perspective, I believe I have taken the time to try to understand my constituents' concerns and my constituents' feelings on a number of issues. I assure you I have read probably almost every single e-mail that has come in, even the long ones and some were very painful to read and some were very enjoyable. But despite the fact that I didn't always necessarily agree with the issues, I certainly always respected the time that people took to put them together. I can't say I have been absolutely perfect in that regard by responding to them, but I have certainly made every effort I thought was reasonable and tried my very best.
Mr. Speaker, sometimes phone calls came in on family time, sometimes at 11:00 and sometimes even 12:00 at night. Sometimes some people always had something to get off their chest and they just want to say can you believe what the government is doing? I would say, okay. Then they would go on and on. Then I would say, can we talk on Monday? They say, well, actually I have already told you. Thanks very much; I appreciate your time. Sometimes that was all it really needed.
Mr. Speaker, for that, I am getting back to what I said earlier, which was I am extremely grateful for my wife. Sue has been fantastic. She is understanding of the cause. She is committed to the process. She knows that people can be demanding on her time. She knows that sometimes we have to be at meetings instead of there at suppertime and so she is committed to the bigger picture of what we do. So I am so grateful for having a strong wife. I am blessed with that support. As I said earlier about good days and bad days, she certainly was there for the good ones and I am so thankful she was there for the bad ones. But with her demanding schedule, I can't forget about my two little monsters. Sometimes I have to bring my two boys here at the office to read some e-mails and read some of my mail. They would be playing in my office. Now, I assure this House and everyone listening that the Thomas the Train toys were for their entertainment and not mine. Mr. Speaker, it was always exciting to look at them play there while I was able to read. They didn't mind at all coming to the House while I worked.
Mr. Speaker, since I have come to the Assembly, I have always had pictures of my two sons and, of course, when I only had one son it was just him, but I always had them in front of me as a reminder of why we are here. I try to look at them and I use that as my sort of test of integrity. So when we bring forward an issue, I am always having them look at me. I use that as a reminder of why we are here. So, Mr. Speaker, when issues are raised, I think of them and I always step forward in that regard, always with the integrity and sense first.
Mr. Speaker, although we raise our issues in our own way, a comment that has always come back to me, which some days they sound less good than others, but people always make the point of saying make sure your issue is true. Make sure you speak from the heart. That is all that really matters. As long as you do that, you are okay.
Mr. Speaker, I am just going to close by saying a few small things in regards to Coady Summerfield. He has been my constituency assistant now for two and a half years. He is extremely meticulous. He is extremely smart and hard working. I don't think I could have done half the work without his assistance. I would certainly say he would rival any other constituency assistant that we could ever imagine of. For him, I am truly grateful.
Mr. Speaker, personal memories in closing here will be some of the times working here late on the weekends or at night and then taking a moment or two to play with my kids and remind myself what really is important and why we do our things. Occasionally, my sons will beg me to run and chase them down the halls. I certainly hope that someday security doesn't sort of hold me hostage with those video tapes of me making screaming noises, but to my kids, that seemed to be one of the exciting things. They had always asked, "Are we going to Daddy's office this weekend?" That was very important to them.
Mr. Speaker, on the last note, I am going to point out that I had my second son born while I was here in office. Even though my wife was still two or more weeks away from being due, she thought it was important for me to go to Ottawa on NWT Day. As soon as I landed in Ottawa, I got the phone call and she said the water broke. Me being a guy, I said, can you hold it until I get home in two days? Well, like Mr. Yakeleya about being concerned about censorship and wording, I won't say what she actually said on the phone, but I will say that she did say no. She called me back a little while later and said that nothing is happening. Everything is good. Then at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, I got a phone call and there was a baby crying in the background on NWT Day. She said it was here. For
her, it was important that I was in Ottawa with the rest of this Assembly raising the issues, raising the profile of the NWT for the greater good. So, Mr. Speaker, as I have highlighted twice and I want to do it for a third time, my wife has been absolutely key to my success. I thank her many times over. I thank her quite often because she sometimes gets neglected because we have meetings and we have to travel. She has to find a way around to deal with the kids, but, Mr. Speaker, none of us could be here without our partners. I think, of everything I have said, that is the most important thing I want to finish with. I couldn't be here without the strength of my wife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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