Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been both a difficult and challenging issue that many of our Members have been dealing with as of late. I want to thank, first off, Mr. Yakeleya for his passion and his commitment to the people of the Sahtu. He has challenged this hill with great fervency and zeal. I can tell you that this has not been, hey, let’s do this, and what do you guys think. He’s brought Bill 24 over with a lot of work, and I can tell you, when he first started talking about this a few years ago, saying we have to do something, it started with we have to do something. Then it went into a lot of work behind and a lot of communications and a lot of knocking on doors. This bill did not show up here on our desks before this Legislature overnight. I’m trying to really stress to the people that this just didn’t come overnight. It came over with great passion, a lot of work, a lot of commitment and a lot of energy. I applaud the Member for his commitment and his passion for the job he is doing.

Let us not forget why we do this job. Many days I wish we could make everyone happy. To some of that, I’d like to talk about that. Are we going to make everyone happy by doing this? Sometimes we ask ourselves, you know, how do we do this. Well, it wasn’t, you know, yesterday that I was asking about trying to solve one problem in reference to the power rates about, well, we engineer the power rates. In other words, we make decisions to do things. Now, I don’t agree with everything they did, but what I’m saying here is we have the power to do things we want to do with the types of outcomes and objectives.

At the same time, alcohol consumption, control, management and monitoring is a decision we can make. We can engineer our own rules and laws. In other words, we have control of them, so we can decide what type of outcome we’re striving for.

I happen to be a big fan of Stephen Covey, and I often quote him, and he’s got some really simple ones. He says, “Begin with the end in mind.” So what are we trying to do here? We heard the Minister or at least someone talk about personal choices. Yes, but we’re trying to buy people a healthy window of time to ensure that they are healthy. That’s a focus on the end. How do we get there? Bill 24 could be the right vehicle. I don’t know if it’s the vehicle to get us there, but it could be the right vehicle.

I’ve been using my political career in a manner of saying, you know what, let’s break from the status quo. Yes, I try to bring a lot of ideas to the Assembly, and I certainly welcome a lot of ideas as well. Why would I see standing in the way of Bill 24 as a good thing? I can’t imagine a single reason why.

When I struggled with this, I kept thinking to myself, as other Members have, and it needs to be said, which is what are we doing to the town of Norman Wells in the context of autonomy. Are we stepping into an area when we should be bolstering their autonomy and their authority and allowing them to make their decisions? I really struggled with that.

But at the same time, I also have to balance the problem of what happens to the surrounding communities. Do I vote to take away the autonomy from one area by extending that authority and relationship to a larger area? I struggled with this many a day, and I talked to a number of people, and actually, once again, I want to thank Mr. Yakeleya for not putting unfair pressure on any Member. He talked about why he needed this, but he never made anyone feel as if we were strong-armed, not that that’s allowed, but strong-armed to make a decision. He brought it to us to say this is the case that we need to make, this is the case I’m trying to communicate with you and this will help our people.

The other thing I struggled with is thinking of the Sahtu as a whole region. There will come a day that they will govern themselves as a whole region and in their own relationship that they’ll be working with each other. Are we ahead of the curve by asking ourselves, are we giving them the authority as a group rather than an individual? What will this do to Norman Wells? What will this do to the region? By the region, I mean Fort Good Hope, Tulita, Deline and Colville. I hope I didn’t miss anybody. It wasn’t intended that way if I did. The reality here, and we often think this ourselves, is we must weigh and balance the needs of many versus the needs of few. I keep thinking: What’s the worst that could

happen? A little less alcohol could be sold if further restrictions were put back. What is the worst that could happen if we left them wide open? Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t have to imagine; we are already starting to see those results.

I should also temper, sort of, some of my remarks now on to the communities. This isn’t Norman Wells’ fault alone. I did tell Mr. Yakeleya I would be speaking this way, as well, because I feel that is a challenging decision that involves everyone, this smuggling of alcohol into communities. But I’m not blind to the fact that – and I can’t say I’ve witnessed this, but I’ve heard this repeatedly – many of the people bringing alcohol into the communities are related to the people in those communities, whether they’re their brothers, their sons, their daughters, their uncles, their aunts, their grandmothers. But yet I’m also well aware of the challenge to deal with it with their own family. Could they call the police on their own family? I’m well aware of that. That’s a constant juxtaposition that these families would find themselves in. I’m not sure they are doing anything right. I don’t want to get them in trouble. It’s a constant balance of struggle going back and forth. Sometimes what they’re doing is the best thing they feel they can do for their loved ones is not doing that, and yet we get some of the results we have.

I would support anything that puts roadblocks in front of addictions. If the public wasn’t listening today, I’m sure that the message is slowly getting out there that this side of the House, the Members themselves at large have great concern with addictions and finding roadblocks for addictions in the sense of stopping people’s consumption of it and trying to help people with their troubles.

If it’s not clear by now, I have chosen with great consideration to vote in favour of the bill. I consider that the rights of the many must outweigh the rights of the few. As I said earlier, as I talked about the engineering of power rates, sometimes we meddle in areas for the good, although maybe on the micro level people are concerned why we’re in there.

As I said, I will be supporting the bill and I will be supporting it proudly, because I feel we must do something that outweighs the problems we are having now. I’m not sure that this will solve everything, but I feel that without trying something bold and new, we have solved nothing. To that, I thank you.