Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re getting to the midway point of our term in the 17th Legislative Assembly, and as I have been known to do on occasion in the past, sometimes we like to talk about ministerial performance. I don’t have any speaking notes here, so I’m just going to wing this.
When we come here elected as 19 Members, we come here all as equals, all equally elected. Then we go into our territorial leadership and choose seven from amongst us to sit and hold positions of responsibility and leadership in certain areas of government performance. In my opinion, the “us” and “them” begins, which I think is a problem, but we continue to work on it. It’s our form of government. I think it needs to be reviewed and I think it needs to be looked at. We call it consensus government but it has traits of party politics, which is kind of a hybrid. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work that well, which I think we can all talk about.
When we choose the seven from amongst us to take on these special roles and responsibilities, we have expectations, I think, from all of us, because we’re all MLAs. Even if we’re Cabinet Ministers, we’re still MLAs and we all come here hoping to make a difference and use our contribution to better things. I believe we’re all here for noble and very good motives.
From this side of the House, the things that we look for in our leaders on the opposite side of the House is we would like them to be hardworking. We would like them to be knowledgeable so that when we ask
them questions, they can answer them. We would like them to have good communication skills. We would like them to be very responsible to the tasks before them. Obviously, they are all honest and honourable Members. We expect honesty. We expect sensitivity. If they are a Member who represents a large city, we expect them to be sensitive to the issues that we bring to them on behalf of our constituents that might be unique to our region or community. We like sensitivity. We’d like them to keep a global perspective, that they’re there to represent the entire Northwest Territories with fairness and equity.
Having said that, I don’t know if I have time. I had jotted down some comments on each one of these folks, but now I see that the clock is ticking here and I don’t know if I’ll have enough time. Maybe I’ll have to make that my statement for tomorrow. It’s unanimous consent to conclude your statement, not to extend your statement. I will leave it at that for today. Tomorrow is theme day, but I’ll get it in there tomorrow. It’s actually theme day on bullying so it will have to be very, very nice.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
