Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have been listening to my colleagues here today talking about the lack of communication with Regular Members on this side. I have been in this government now for four terms. I have never seen it worse than it is right now. I am feeling extremely discouraged, to be honest. I hate to admit discouragement, but I feel discouraged.
Any time we offer an opinion or any kind of criticism, even if we try to be constructive on this side of House, it seems to be met with, so early in this term, almost kind of a mocking arrogance from the other side of the House — the demeanour, the talking, the laughing when we are trying to share things that are really important. We’re not here just for a good time; we are here to get something done.
I think everybody here could be doing something different, but we are here because we feel we have something to offer and something to contribute and something to bring to the table on behalf of Northerners. Every time we talk like this, it seems, I could say we get met with this kind of mocking laughter from the other side of the House. Well, I’m telling you, I don’t think they think over there that we will do anything about this situation. I think that is why they can sit there and laugh at it; I don’t think they think we will do anything about it.
We all got on board the good ship Government when we got elected a year ago. But I’m sorry; the government has got its sails down. We are going
nowhere fast. The petty little bits of legislation that come before us: if that’s the agenda of the government, that’s pretty sad, and it is out of touch with the realities facing the North. We have big problems. We have big issues out there, and we are just taking this kind of, I don’t know, stargazing approach.
Maybe I’m not in touch. I’d sure like to hear from Northerners about how they feel this government is performing. My sense from within this government here, sitting at this table, is that we haven’t even raised the sail on this government yet. We’re just tossing about to and fro with no real direction. I don’t want to be part of that. I don’t want to be on that side of the House. I want to be here, but I want to feel that the input I have, the energy I have to bring to this job is meaningful and respected and will actually get some results.
We do have an issue here. I would be very interested in hearing from the folks out there in the public about what they think of this government. This is not a bureaucratic exercise. We are the leaders; we are the visionaries, so let’s get the sails up.