Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’m agreeing with the sentiments raised by my two previous speakers, colleagues from Yellowknife North and Yellowknife Centre, respectively. I think we had a more collaborative process this time around. That’s a good thing. There are, however, a number of conflicting items and commitments in the mandate, and it’s not possible to do it all. It’s so big that you could drive trucks through it. I’ll use one example. When we say that we’re going to try to accomplish three major road projects all at the same time, I think it’s unrealistic and raises unrealistic expectations among residents. It’s just not possible financially, capacity-wise, and so on. I’ve always said that I think we’re doing our residents a disservice by having too many items in the mandate. In some cases there are even conflicting items. There is no way we can build a Mackenzie Valley highway, a Slave geological province road, and a road to Whati at the same time. Even if the federal government gave us gazillions of dollars, there’s no way we could do it all at the same time. I think we should have spent more time setting some priorities, as my colleague from Yellowknife Centre said.

I think the process that we went through was a sound one. I do worry, though; I think some of the discussion and debate that we have had around changing parts of the mandate should take place on the floor and in public. This is not just about tweaking in some cases. This is about fundamental changes to our priorities and the things that we have agreed to try to work together on.

I will just use one example which I will speak of later: child care. There is a fundamental change in the priorities in this new document. We are not aspiring for universal child care anymore. We are just going to try to improve affordability and accessibility. I think that is a fundamental change. I think it represents a broken promise, and I will raise that again when we come to that part of the discussion later today. Those are my remarks, Mr. Chair. Thank you.