Debates of October 12, 2005 (day 8)

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I also would like to say welcome to all the other MLAs, yourself included, Mr. Speaker, back into the House for this Fourth Session. I would like to extend an especially warm welcome to our new Member for Monfwi, Jackson Lafferty. I’d also like to say welcome to the Legislative Assembly staff, the new Pages, and all our special guests and the general public to the fourth sitting of this 15th Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll be brief in my Member’s statement today as I’m not really feeling too vocal today. That being said, I would just like to briefly express my enthusiasm and support of this government’s latest actions toward restructuring and revamping of many government programs and services over the past two years, which I feel are better suited to meeting the many core needs of northerners today. I commend this government for this and I look forward to moving ahead with many other improvements that are currently being considered and reviewed by this government today.

Mr. Speaker, although there is a lot of work that we have to do over the next two years in order to address many other fundamental flaws and inconsistencies in a lot of other areas of government programs and services, I am confidently optimistic that we can soon realize more tangible and basic improvements in many important areas such as education, youth, housing, health, economic development and community and regional capacity building; if we continue to strive to keep all northerners abreast of all our intentions and continue to build on all our working relationships, especially with the smaller 27 communities, their leaders, and all the aboriginal governments on all our fronts. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause