Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I think my colleagues have spoken very, very well on this and on the achievements of the department today.

One thing, we are, of course, looking at a brand new department of the Executive that is now merging with previous Aboriginal Affairs, and I do want to commend the name change, Executive and Indigenous Affairs, bringing our language terminology in line with the new national standard, which I think shows a great deal of respect and sympathy towards Indigenous peoples across the country and of course here in the Northwest Territories. I think there will still be some terminology to work out within government policies but this is a welcome shift towards modernizing our language towards reconciliation.

I also want to talk about GSOs, but in a different context. I really like this model of service-oriented government support for communities. It's an award-winning service and it should be in our larger centres as well. I know the Premier is well aware of this, and so is the department, I'm sure, as that is something I bring up often, but we really need to start figuring out how to get this done.

Many of my colleagues, the honourable Members who represent Yellowknife ridings, are constantly doing that kind of work, the GSO work, and also colleagues from regional centres as well, and it would be helpful if our constituents as well could benefit from the same resources that a single point of entry to accessing the government services can provide. You know, it's not enough just to say we have headquarters in Yellowknife so it's easy to get help; it can be incredibly complicated and many people need integrated support services. Whether they're trying to open a business or get support for complex social needs or even fill out registration forms, that kind of help is really required, and particularly for the many seniors we have in our communities.

So I do think that as much as we can point to this department as one that has experienced a lot of success in that program and other programs. There is still work to do and not a lot of drive to do it at current, so we still need to take action on making our government a service-oriented government that puts the priority of how government programs affect people and can be accessed.

The Indigenous rights agreement side, I think that is another way we can move forward, especially combining it with Intergovernmental Affairs so we can develop a cohesive approach with our federal and territorial partners and Indigenous government partners. So these are all good things.

I do caution, though, that we are looking at a very new org chart with a very different structure than previous, and where when Indigenous Affairs was a separate department there was perhaps more of an ability to take a focused approach to that work and report directly to a Minister responsible who is often the Premier.

Now, that is going to change, with that position reporting directly to someone inside the public service, and that may have unintended consequences; and I think, again, this is another amalgamation that is driven by cost-savings and not by efficiencies.

I think we are beyond the point where we can debate whether or not that is a good idea, but we certainly can hold the government accountable to the decision to do this amalgamation and we will be watching. Hopefully, it will provide the kind of fast tracking to some of these policy areas that this amalgamation is supposed to improve.

So I have my concerns, but we will see how they roll out in the future. Thank you.