Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to welcome everybody back for the third session as we work for the residents of the Northwest Territories and look forward to the next six weeks. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recap and highlight some of the things that I have done since our last sitting.
This past November, the various standing committees had the opportunity to review and discuss the business plans of all of the departments as we prepared for the 2018-2019 budget. I would like to thank the Ministers and their staff and look forward to the debate and discussion for the budget this year.
Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Social Development had the opportunity to travel with the Minister of Health and Social Services and a number of his staff to tour the four addiction treatment facilities that the government has contracts with for our residents. I found the facilities to be unique and we had a lot of questions and good information exchanged. Later, I will be doing a couple of Member's statements in regards to this trip and the committee will be tabling a report.
Mr. Speaker, from December 20th to 28th I had the opportunity to visit all my siblings, my children and their spouses, and all my grandchildren. This is the first time I have ever been able to do that. I drove over 4,000 kilometres to eight communities. It was an amazing trip, and I got to see the whole family during this time. Like the old saying goes, the trip was priceless.
January 3rd I took my youngest son to Fort Smith. To say the trip was an adventure would be an understatement. I will be addressing this adventure in another Member's statement later on in this session. The following Monday, Minister McLeod and his staff arrived in our region to do a regional tour. I would like to thank the Minister for wanting to drive the whole trip. I know in speaking with the residents that they really appreciated us driving to their communities. Unfortunately, we were not able to get to one community, and we made plans to reschedule later on.
Mr. Speaker, I also had the opportunity to participate in three community sporting events. One was hockey, senior hockey. I played four games, and then the next weekend I curled in the Merchants' Bonspiel. There, we were down eight-nothing after three ends, and we were able to come back to tie and play an extra end. Unfortunately, we did lose. This past weekend, we had the pleasure of going to Fort Smith and playing the Old Timers' Tournament. It was a great weekend, a bit tiring. We played six games in 28 hours. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all the volunteers and organizers for making these three events great. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.