Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly was an early advocate for the ombudsman during my first term in the 15th Assembly, and then

in the 16th Assembly I did question, similarly as the

Premier had done, wondering about the value and the challenges put before us.

I often wondered: would the MLAs be putting themselves out of a job by having an ombudsman because people would first think that is the person we should be going to. But over time I have learned even more. I have been given the chance to understand the complexities and particular issues and appreciate how challenging they can be. I think Member Groenewegen really talked well about the types of struggles we have and how far our personal limitations can be. It’s not just about your pocketbook anymore when you march government to court. It’s about being able to get the right access to the right information to make sure we make the right decisions.

I recall a time when I approached a particular department – the department will remain faceless – I remember an applicant came to me, she told me she was applying for a program. She told me her former spouse went and scuttled her application by whispering false information. By the time I was able to deal with this with the particular department, well, money had gone by, too bad, that’s the way it goes. They wouldn’t provide any information as to what they were doing or how they were investigating, other than the fact that they said, we manage and investigate our own issues. It was a very challenging issue. I had to go back to the constituent with very little support from anyone and say, how do we deal with this situation? I had no recourse at the time. She had no recourse at the time, and at the time government said, that’s the way it is.

I don’t believe the ombudsman is the solution to every problem, nor should anyone else think the ombudsman is the solution to every problem. What I do say, though, is it is important that we have all the tools in our toolbox that work. When the person needs these types of levers, they need to be ready and there to grab them in case of an emergency.

Many challenges about information are about being given access. MLAs are denied a lot of access to information, so how do we really know if we are getting to the bottom line of a situation? We don’t know. We often have to say to the face of government and sit in frustration because of confidentiality and other processes.

If we did it by the numbers… I want to thank that Member Moses for sort of qualifying it in his own way. I had actually thought of it slightly different, but the same kind of mechanism. Over the past firefighting season we spent approximately $40 million, and of course, we have all heard the story it was about a million dollars a day. We have all heard the cost of an ombudsman office that can run anywhere between $400,000 and $600,000 per year. If I did that in firefighter dollars, that’s less than half a day in firefighter dollars to make sure Northerners are safe for a year.

If I took MLA Dolynny’s numbers of highway money, this would be less than half a kilometre of highway to know that our people are protected. I think our people are worth at least a half a kilometre of protection. I think that our people in the Northwest Territories are worth half a day and certainly more than half a day of firefighting.

The point I am making is, we can justify the spending of some money some ways and we can certainly justify the money we are not spending in other ways. It’s very easy; these are called decisions. Now, I understand, I know and I can appreciate, as I am going to wrap up my statement here and say this, I know government has challenges when Member’s give direction, we have

seen this trouble recently on the Junior Kindergarten. We are all Members united together over a common cause for the people.

I will finish by saying something very simple. I have often been told, if you want something done, make it their idea. I am willing to say every single Member of this Assembly is willing to give the ombudsman initiative to the Premier and Cabinet. So I am going to finish by saying, Tom Beaulieu, I am going to thank you for your fine work on this job. Michael Miltenberger, you have always been a visionary on this issue. Bob McLeod, I appreciate your help on this initiative. Jackson Lafferty, I applaud your understanding the complication of this problem. David Ramsay, your achievements behind the scenes will always never go unnoticed. R.C. McLeod, your willingness to understand the complexity of the issue goes well above and beyond. As I said, I don’t need the credit, and I suspect none of our Members need the credit. We need to be there for the citizens of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Premier, feel free to take all the credit on this initiative. I will welcome it and I have no doubt all my colleagues do, all we need to do is act. Thank you.