Good afternoon, Colleagues. Today, I am going to recognize a long service member of the public service, Mr. Mike Drake.
I had the pleasure of knowing him for over 20 plus years. I first got to know him when he moved to Fort Liard to become a social worker for the community. In true Mike's fashion, after a couple of years of getting a good handle on his job he wanted to be more involved in the community, if that was possible. He became the fire chief and the mayor. The community greatly appreciated his commitment and willingness to help where he was needed.
After there, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs came calling for a community governance advisor and deputy chief municipal elections officer. Like he told me, it was something new and interesting which excited him, especially the opportunity to provides advice, training, and support to community governments and to Municipal and Community Affairs on community governance, legislation, bylaw making, supporting the development and advancement of workable, affordable, and efficient form of local and regional governments and implementation of the new Aboriginal self-governments. As well, the position had an impact on nearly all residents in the Northwest Territories through support to all 33 community governments and Indigenous governments.
In 2010, he moved to the Yukon for a very brief time as the SAO, but he and his family missed the NWT and the Deh Cho region. Lucky for him, the regional superintendent position came open for the Deh Cho region and he applied. He spent over ten years in Fort Simpson as the regional superintendent. For the first five years, I got to work with him and got to know his wife and daughter. They were very happy to be back. We were thankful what he liked about the job and would say the department's work in the region in supporting communities increasing resources, authority, and responsibility over areas and working with the communities in regards to their emergency management organization. One of his assets was his ability to speak Dene Zhatie. He was able to have conversations with elders and leadership in their traditional language explaining the process and procedures when needed.
After 2021, he had the opportunity to take on the same role with the Tli Clo region. He thoroughly enjoyed his time there but the need to see other parts of the country came a calling and he and his wife retired and moved to BC.
I would like to wish him and his family all the best in his retirement. Thank you for your service for the Deh Cho, TliCho, and residents of the Northwest Territories.
