Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we’ve come to the last couple days of this session, I thought I’d make a statement here. I’d like to speak on consensus government.

I support consensus government. As a new MLA here, I was able to get involved in the budget process, involved in committee, involved in everything in the government right from the get-go. I support consensus government. I know we need to improve it, but I’ve been part of the Transition Committee this summer on ways that we can improve consensus government, the way we can make it better for the public, for the Regular Members and for the Cabinet.

In consensus government I don’t have to tow a party line. It’s easy. My mandate is Hay River. I represent Hay River on a number of issues. Whenever I have a question, I just need to go home; I’ll get my mandate again. I just need to talk to people, have a constituency meeting and put it out to the people as a question. Whether that topic is dredging, fishing industry, northern manufacturing, Mental Health Act changes, whether it’s a school swap, that’s an example, Mr. Speaker. We had a discussion about school swap. We went home. Both groups told us no, we don’t want a school swap. That’s an example of consensus government. We’re given back our mandate; don’t accept that. We didn’t accept it. We’re dealing with the issue going forward.

We do need to improve consensus government and I think the key to that is communication. We need the government to communicate with Regular Members how things are being done and when things are being done, not just on the minimum amount of time but through the whole process.

Communication is a two-way street. Regular Members here need to be trusted with that information. We’re given that information early, so we need to rebuild that trust. We need to rebuild the trust that Regular Members get that information and it’s not going to end up on social media; it’s not going to end up on some press release right after it’s given.

For some reason, like I said, when I first got here, people talked about how the hallways had mikes in them, because as soon as we had a conversation, everybody seemed to know about it in the building. So, in order to improve consensus government, we need to improve our communication. We need to improve trust.

Consensus works for us in a small jurisdiction. It’s easy. If we had party politics, eventually somewhere down the line some community may be left out. If my community isn’t represented by the government, then I’m going to be left out in the cold. Consensus government works in the Northwest Territories and is strong and is alive. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.