Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue here is this is being planted as a seed. We had some discussions in the past, and like my other colleagues, when this came up I certainly did support the notion of an ombudsman in the Northwest Territories.

A couple days ago in the Members’ lounge, it’s been reported on the news and Mr. Bromley spoke about the sighting of a wolverine just past the Members’ lounge as we were having dinner with the Ontario ombudsman. The wolverine is a well-respected animal, fierce and with survival but also very feared by many people, any animal, and isn’t it a coincidence that we have the ombudsman here with us at the same time a wolverine passes. I’m saying maybe that’s a sign that a powerful animal like that and as our colleagues talked about the positon that we’re talking about, how you look at that position, it could be friend or foe, and the wolverine, I’m trying to think, even last night, what is that wolverine telling us, having been spotted close by the buildings. Animals usually tell us, if you really think about it, they tell you something and it’s for us to think about it. What are they saying? What is it saying to us? It was a young wolverine; it wasn’t an old one. It was still small, and he was dark skinned, so it’s a young wolverine, not the old ones. You can tell, and I thought, well, what is that young wolverine telling us walking by our Assembly here at the same time we invited the Ontario ombudsman here to support the Government Operations committee and support the Members on this side with his expertise and what they’ve done in Ontario and the growing pains, and this is planting the seed.

As any well-known farmer or anybody who has family who had farming, it’s always the time is right to plant. There’s a time to plant, and the seeds have to be put in the ground, and the farmer has to do it properly, otherwise he’ll have a bad crop, and the weather might not be too favourable. So I thought the time is right now to plant this.

We heard it on November 3rd , people coming out to

talk to us, we heard it from the Members, and we have to think that anything worthwhile isn’t easy. Certainly we are asking this Assembly to look at it, with all the questions that you may have and the Assembly may have and all the other questions it takes for a request like this from this side as a recommendation to government on drafting a discussion paper, drafting legislation on the request that we think that the timing is right now to have it.

With that in mind, I think it’s time now to start planting the seed of the ombudsman, pull out the weeds that we need to pull out, how do we form this position in the Northwest Territories and to help all of us, not just outside members but, more importantly, to help the people in the small communities, people in the communities, the larger centres like Yellowknife and other regional centres. I think now we need, more than ever, to have the ombudsman.

The last question is: What would it cost us if we didn’t have an ombudsman? We have to think about that. Thank you.