Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we started the 17th Assembly, we set up some

priorities, and one of those priorities was decentralization. Yesterday Mr. Bromley referred to decentralizing his position to Hay River.

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Seriously, I know Mr. Bromley works hard in Detah and Ndilo, small communities that need his support.

When we started this journey about decentralization, the government gave us issues that we had: housing issues in small communities, office space requirements and residential issues. The government has indicated to me and given us some stats that they’ve created 158 jobs outside of Yellowknife. Mr. Speaker, we would be celebrating that if those were all the facts.

The other facts are we know they started and devolved over 200 in Yellowknife, so decentralization is not happening, Mr. Speaker.

We need to be committed to decentralizing, putting more jobs out into the communities, not only to the regional centres but some of the smaller communities. We need to solve those issues of housing and office space. We need to know the next phase. We’ve had our three phases, but what’s the next phase? What’s happening next

year? We still don’t have a plan coming forward, and we know that this is the last statement for 2014. What is going to happen in February and March? What are we going to hear about a continued decentralization?

We need to get this done. This is the 17th Assembly

and something this Assembly set as a priority. We need to be committed to it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.