Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to speak about the iron law of bureaucracy, a term coined by Jerry Pournelle, a researcher on legacy institutions. The law states that, in any bureaucratic organization, there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in the GNWT would be those who work hard and sacrifice their time to serve our public, and I thank them for that, versus those who avoid accountability, consider their main role to push paper, and ensure that they hold the department record for being cc'd on the most emails.

The iron law states that, in all cases, the type of person whose primary goal is to climb a bureaucratic ladder, as opposed to serve the public, will always gain control of the organization and will always write the rules under which the organization functions. This is the challenge of legacy institutions, Mr. Speaker, such as government. If government were a business, it would have failed long ago. It would have been forced to declare bankruptcy and try again with new ideas. Yet government bankruptcy, despite what our fiscal situation might say, is not an option.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to clarify: government can't be run on profit motive, and all of our goals in this House is to have the GNWT succeed, not fail; but, if we are not speaking honestly about problems that persist in any legacy institution, then we cannot serve our citizens.

This is not me speaking, Mr. Speaker. There is no shortage of research on solutions on how to address systemic problems in public service institutions. One way in which the iron law is solidified is the avoidance of making decisions, also known as "paralysis by analysis." The reality is that we all have to make decisions in uncertainty. There will always be trade-offs. We can't pretend that we live in a perfect world with all of the data. If you are in a department and the sixth briefing note on a subject has been requested, perhaps it is time to just make a decision.

Mr. Speaker, I struggle with this because, on this side of the House, we constantly ask for more power, for more input, for more information, yet we all have to realize that the goal here is to empower the experts in our departments to make decisions; to empower those on the front line to serve our citizens. It may be time to ruffle some feathers, but it is our job to make those tough decisions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.