Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to thank my colleagues and our chair for providing the leadership in terms of our travel, our meetings, and our discussions throughout the Northwest Territories communities that we had the good fortune of visiting and holding public forums and discussion. I think that that was the basic approach, trying to create at least an understanding of the issue of why women don't get elected to the territorial level, and trying to have some discussion and raised awareness of how it is that we could create, perhaps, possibilities of changing that whole issue and dilemma that we face now.

I think that that was the sole purpose of our discussion, but at the same time, we examined some changes that we thought that we could make. We did it in an interim report, and now we are concluding the final report. We wanted to make some strategic changes. I think that those recommendations that we are going to be talking about later on capture at least some of the key things that people had expressed to us, especially in the forums that we held in the communities.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to explain in my language what this whole discussion was all about, if I could, Mr. Chair. [English translation not provided]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just explained that the way that I see it, from the perspective of the people that I represent, considering some of the really deep-rooted traditional values that we have. We have a basic dilemma at this point. There are 19 MLAs, and there are only two women. In the Dene perspective, if you are going to make a decision, half of your decision-making input is not there, so you are only making half of a decision.

I don't know how to describe it or explain it in my language, but it is a matter of perception, and that is how I explained it, that half of our decision-making is not present. This was very important for me to at least share that perspective with the many people that we met during that time of our travel throughout the communities. I look forward to the ongoing discussions. Once again, I wanted to thank my colleagues and the staff that helped us out and our chair for leading the charge on this matter. Mahsi.