Like my colleagues have mentioned, this is a very serious issue not to be taken lightly and I’ve listened very carefully to what everybody has said on both sides. Like everybody here, I’m very proud and honoured to be an MLA. I’m also proud and honoured to serve my constituents for the past 16 months. I have been proud and honoured to work with my colleagues on both sides of the floor. I’ve been proud to work with GNWT staff both here in headquarters and up and down the valley. Their efforts are crucial to our success and I applaud them all.
The past several months have been challenging for all of us. Since I became Minister, very early on I was reminded that we could be taken out, because we were put in by the Caucus. And I’ve taken that very seriously.
Also, I’ve been singled out as being delinquent in my communications. I want to point out that this is something that I think all of us can improve upon. Depending on the outcome of the motion, I’ll continue to work very seriously to improve in this area.
I thought about it and I said, well, how could we improve on the process? We have a well established process of committees and Cabinet and so on that’s been here for some time. How can we improve on communications? Is it a systemic problem? I don’t think it’s a lack of will to communicate. Perhaps now that everybody has Blackberries we’ll make sure that we send messages to everybody. But I think it’s more a function of getting together, reconfirming how everything should work, and agreeing that we will communicate and work together.
So I will commit to all my colleagues, both Cabinet and Regular Members, that I will continue to work together. Several Members have mentioned that maybe we needed to get to this point so that it will cause us to reflect on how we can work to find ways to work better together and to go forward. People are relying on us to show leadership, so let’s set aside our differences and find ways to move forward.
Improving communications is critical and we should all commit to doing that. I think we all could have done a better job of communicating, including myself. I’ll continue to try to improve in that area. I’ll make a commitment today to make a concerted effort to communicate more and better. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us. I know all of us work very hard and all of our families will attest to that.
I’d ask everybody to reflect on the good work that’s been done and to find ways to move forward.