Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And like my colleagues, a lot of what I wanted to say has already been said so I won't repeat it. But I do want to highlight some of the changes that have happened here at the Legislative Assembly since Mr. Mercer took the helm, and I've seen them -- even in my seven years here; I've seen a number of changes. And I will say that of course the Speaker gets all the credit for the improvements that happen at the Legislative Assembly, and I know Mr. Mercer wouldn't have it any other way. He doesn't want to take any of that credit, but I believe he has a big hand in bringing the voices of this Legislative Assembly to the people of the territory. Since his time in this role, the Legislative Assembly, the television channel has become a requirement to be carried by the satellite and cable broadcasters as part of their base package. So across the territory, people now have access to our proceedings on TV. And I know that they watch them. When I go into communities, I hear from a lot of people who watch the proceedings, a lot of elders who watch the proceedings. When I began here, there was no live streaming of committee meetings, of the proceedings. We can now watch the Legislative Assembly on Facebook Live, on Twitter, on the Legislative Assembly website, on YouTube. We have access all around the world. We also have access in a number of different languages. So I believe there might be seven different languages being interpreted right now. So the Assembly, you know, it's in Yellowknife, and not a lot of people come to this building, not a lot of people in Yellowknife even come to this building. So what Mr. Mercer has really helped facilitate is taking the words of the MLAs, the representatives of the people, and ensuring that the people actually get to hear them. And I think that is going to be one of his lasting legacies.

Similar to what some of my other colleagues said, I found that Mr. Mercer's been very supportive. When we come in as MLAs, we're deer in the headlight. And he's well aware of that, he's seen many deer come through this House, and I found that he was always very supportive. And often I would receive support from him without realizing it at the time. It might be a comment that, you know, relates to something that we had previously discussed but wasn't directly related to it but it would sit in the back of my head and it would -- you know, it would impact me and it would help me. Little things. I have a poem in my inbox that Mr. Mercer shared with me after I told him about some of the things that, you know, I was experiencing as a Member.

As Deputy Speaker, I worked, you know, with the Speaker and with Mr. Mercer and he was always very supportive of providing developmental -- professional development opportunities. I had many good conversations about procedure. I know it's not something that most people are interested in but as Deputy Speaker and Government House Leader, I do enjoy those types of conversations and there's not a lot of people with the expertise that Mr. Mercer has as the clerk of a consensus government system. I believe there's only 15 Clerks in Canada. It's not a job that a lot of people do and so it's a very important job, and we need to ensure that people in those roles have the skills. And I always felt that someone was in charge at the Assembly here. You don't always get that sense in some organizations that someone's at the helm, but I always felt that someone was at the helm.

And the final thing I want to mention is that Mr. Mercer was -- he's never been afraid to present bold ideas, present options to Members that they might not otherwise consider. And he's always -- he always knows that it's, ultimately, the Member, it's the elected officials that make those decisions, but I did appreciate hearing things from him that you might not otherwise hear from someone.

And, you know, one very practical example is I was the chair of the special committee on transition matters in the last government, and what that committee does is they make recommendations to the incoming Assembly. Because an incoming Assembly is all fresh faces, basically there's many instances that whatever that committee recommends, that's what happens. And one of the options that Mr. Mercer presented was that perhaps we do a full year budget in this government. Generally we do a budget for a few months, and then we come back in the winter and the new year and hash out a much larger budget. Well, we did recommend that and that's what happened. And if that didn't happen, we would have been sitting in March 2020 without a budget. And what would have happened to the Government of the Northwest Territories? Everything was shut down. You know, we weren't getting together. We weren't able to do what we needed to do. And so because of that suggestion, which, you know, ultimately, we did accept, we had a budget for the first year through COVID. And I think that's a big deal and that really contributed to the GNWT being able to operate. And as my Member stated, you know, he would get a hand in the special committee on increasing the representation of women. And there's numerous examples like that. And, of course, you know, the clerk never gets the credit but those are just a couple of examples where credit is due. And so I look forward to hearing the experiences of other Members as well because I know that, you know, Mr. Mercer has had a very positive impact on this Assembly and on the Members. Thank you.