Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is World No Tobacco Day. Initially I wanted to speak to that. It was something that I kind of started my career of doing a lot of work on tobacco, creating legislation and some of the legislation that we brought to this House.
However, what grabbed my attention and got me thinking last night and today was the motion that we passed in the House yesterday. Members on this side decided to pass a motion to defer a certain budget within this government because we didn’t think that government was acting in the best interest of the people of the Northwest Territories. I’m not going to get into detail, but it showed some match and it showed that we’re working together collectively to create something that’s going to affect our people in the Northwest Territories. It’s doing something that’s going to invest so that future generations are going to be able to succeed. All the youth here today we are putting an invested interest into and into their futures and back home.
Last night I was thinking about this, this morning I was thinking about this, and we as the 11 Members on this side are not just going to sit back and let government dictate how this government is going to act. We saw a budget that came through that’s, as mentioned, status quo from last year and previous budgets. We’ve got a lot of Members on this side; we’ve got a lot of Members who have been here for many years. We’ve had a lot of departments who are bringing forth the same business plans they’ve had the year before.
Yesterday I was really happy when I left work. It was a long day. We’ve gone through a gruelling process and we go through business plans and then we sit here and go through the budgets. If we don’t look at those changes and try to make changes based on what our constituents tell us, then it never gets done. We pass a lot of motions in this House and sometimes all the hard work that our communities and people do, and they put the resolutions and recommendations to this government, and we pass a motion in the House and sometimes it just gets tabled and sits there. That’s not going to happen anymore.
Yesterday I had a really good learning experience, and I was really happy how this government reacted and the quick response that we did get from government in further deliberations. Too many people worked too hard in our communities that when it comes to this floor, it needs to be addressed.
Regardless of whether we need Highway No. 7…(Inaudible)…water systems in the communities…
Order! Mr. Moses, the time for your Member’s statement…
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Obviously this is something that I have a lot of passion about and it’s something that I want to bring to the attention of all residents of the Northwest Territories. Regardless of your gender, your sex, your age, your ethnicity, talk to us. They have to talk to us to make sure that we can move forward on this business. Like I said, regardless if it’s Highway No. 7 or roads or health centres or schools, we are not here only to represent our own constituents but the whole territory and all the people.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
