Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank Mr. McLeod for bringing this motion forward. I want to thank Mrs. Groenewegen for seconding it. I want to thank the devolution crew for all your good work on this. As always, we task you with doing something, we make political decisions and then you’re left to put it into a document and you did a fantastic job.

During the course of our political careers, we run into many highlights and I’ve heard a couple pointed out. One was the division in 1999, and I’ve been fortunate and I’ve had a few highlights so far. One of my major highlights, I think, was being a witness to the Gwich’in signing on to the process in Aklavik in September 2012. I thought that was a huge move on their behalf and I thought it showed tremendous leadership, because I think it was said, at the time, it was better to be inside the tent than outside, and I totally agree with that. I commend them for it.

We’ve heard a number of different reasons today why we need devolution and we heard the Member for Nahendeh talk about an agreement they may have walked away from years ago that cost $30 million.

I posed a written question one time as a Regular Member on the amount that we’ve lost in resource royalties in the last 20 years, and I was surprised at the amount. It was huge, and our share of that would have been very significant and the Aboriginal governments’ share would have been very significant. This is not just about the money, it’s about, and I’ve always been a firm believer, is we need to be decision-makers in our own land and not have those decisions made for us. I truly support this agreement.

The Member for Frame Lake before was quoting a Rolling Stones song that says you can’t always get what you want, and I totally agree with that. Mr. Miltenberger said, is this perfect? It’s not, it’s still a work in progress, but if you look at the second part of this song it says that if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need.

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And what we need and what we have today is a starting point, and the starting point is the Devolution Agreement we’re going to sign, and it will be refined and it will be more beneficial to us.

We can negotiate for the next 40 years and what’s going to happen? That’s all we’re going to do, is negotiate for the next 40 years. Are we going to be any further ahead? I don’t think so. I think the Member for Weledeh pointed out the fact that we may have walked away from a deal a few years ago that had a bit more money tied to it, and how long did we wait after that before we got to this point. So we can negotiate and negotiate and negotiate, and at the end of the day, resource royalties continue to leave, decisions continue to be made for us.

I want to thank the Aboriginal governments. I mean, it was huge that they all signed on. We all have our differences as a government, Cabinet to Regular Members, our differences with the Aboriginal governments, they have their differences with each other, but I commend you all for, at the end of the day, realizing and seeing the bigger picture that we need to unite and do this and I think it carries that much more weight.

There are a couple of groups that haven’t signed on yet. I’m fairly confident that they will and I think, at the end of the day, you want to work for your beneficiaries, look after their needs, but at the same time you have to look at the big picture, and I think the big picture and best interests of everyone is to sign on and I think they will make that decision.

Twenty years from now, when I’m sitting on my steps at my cabin with my 870 Express, waiting for the birds, I want to look back on my political career at some of the decisions that were made during my time and there’s been many. There’s been many, and there’s going to be more.

I see my grandchildren, their friends being beneficiaries of the decisions we make today. I’ll tell them for the twentieth time – I know they probably won’t want to hear it anymore by then – that I was part of a group of leaders, a group of 13 or 14 that got this deal done. We were here for the signing on to devolution, the implementation of devolution in 2014. I was part of that leadership along with all the Aboriginal leaders across the Northwest Territories, and I’m pleased to say I’m a part of that.

Needless to say, I am supporting devolution and I am looking forward to the many benefits that it’s going to bring residents of the Northwest Territories in the future. We do need a starting point and the starting point is right now, Mr. Speaker.