Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on May 24th at 12:17 p.m., an event happened that changed my life forever. That event, Mr. Speaker, was the birth of my very first grandchild.
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My grandson was born to my daughter Kim and her husband, Raymond. What this has to do with the Legislative Assembly, that is a good question. I am glad you all asked it. As I held the boy for the first time, I had a new perspective on what I do for a living. I wondered what was in store for him. I wondered about his future and the future of the other children that were born in Inuvik. We have had a few of them in the last couple of weeks, Mr. Speaker. I wondered if he would be able to benefit from the resources that we seem to have a lot of here, but seem to be getting nothing out of. I was wondering, in 17 years when he graduated from high school, if SFA was going to be straightened out and would be fair to him and his graduating class. If he decided to become a tradesman, will he be able to be trained under local tradesmen that were trained during the building of the pipeline and not 10 years after it? Seriously, I was wondering if he would have any caribou or birds left to hunt as he got older. It is something that we should all be asking and we should be looking after.
Mr. Speaker, the 15th Assembly, along with the aboriginal governments of the Northwest Territories, we have a unique opportunity here to shape the future for our children and our grandchildren. We shouldn’t let them down. Since I have been here, I have chosen my words very carefully. Now that I am a grandpa, I don’t have to because it is expected of us. So, Mr. Speaker, in closing, it takes a whole community to raise children and provide for them. In our case, because we are so small, our whole community is the Northwest Territories. If my daughter and son-in-law don’t lock me out, I will be doing more than my fair share providing for my new grandson. Thank you.
---Applause
