Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has indeed been an amazing six weeks here in the House and in the Legislature. I am very proud and glad to say in the House today that what we've done and the decisions that we've made over the past six weeks, and all the discussions that we've had, we are going to be changing lives within the next fiscal year. We are going to be changing lives for the better for residents of the Northwest Territories and in years to come.

In the six weeks that we've been here, there have been a lot of emotions, a lot of debates, and what residents of the Northwest Territories don't see is everything that happens sometimes right from 7:30 in the morning until late at night, and some meetings that go on beyond the rise of the House.

When we did start this session off and we had the opening budget address, Members on this side of the House were very happy to see that we did have a footprint in that budget address in terms of the deliberations that we've had. I have to say that even though we like to call it our footprint, and over the last six weeks and all the discussions that we had, I'd like to call it our footprints; committee members and Cabinet working together for the betterment of the residents of the Northwest Territories. And this I was very happy to see. In the 16 months that I've been here, the frustrations that I had in my first few months sitting in this House and seeing that we can actually make things work, change some policies, legislation, and the way we do business, and that we're actually listening to people.

I remember last year when we finished up here, I thanked all the staff for all of their hard work. It is amazing the hard work that goes on in this building when we're in session. But there are a lot of other people that we have to thank. We have to thank the families that sacrifice for us to be here and support us while we are here. But we also have to thank our residents, the front-line workers, the nongovernment organizations, the volunteers that sometimes lobby outside this building, that send us e-mails, that continually contact us and ask us to bring things forward into this House. The people that see the groundwork and see the actual work, that do the work that we are making decisions on. We listen to them and we want to let them know that for the next two and a half years, we're going to continue to listen to them and we're going to slowly make those changes so that the next budget round we're going to have more things to offer and more great decisions that are made. I thank all my colleagues here in the House today, and the staff.