Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to reflect a little on the events of this past weekend as we commemorated and thought about the 20 year anniversary of this building. It was wonderful to see Members from the past here, sharing their thoughts, and it was truly inspiring.
I’m not a person who stops and ponders the past very often. I’m usually very much in the present moment and pushing forward in whatever that moment is. I was looking at the calendar just now and realized that it was 39 years ago today, on November the 4th, that my parents took a 17-year-old to the Union Station in Toronto, the train station, and dropped her off. When my mother cried, my father said, “Don’t worry, we’ll see her soon because she won’t make it past Northern Ontario and she’ll turn around and she’ll be back,” but almost 40 years have passed. I’m like a lot of people; I chose the North. I didn’t come here with my family; I didn’t come here because my father got transferred here with the military. I was 17 years old and picked it off the map in Grade 12 geography class and I chose the North, and I chose Hay River specifically.
When the Pacific Western Airlines jet touched down on the tarmac in Hay River, I truly felt like I was home, and I have always felt like I was home. It wasn’t very long before I became involved with the Youth Justice Committee, with school boards, the town council. We talk about the North as a place of opportunity. I tell young people if you want to be involved, the Northwest Territories is a place of wonderful opportunities, you just have to look for those opportunities around you. If you are a willing helper and you will lend a willing hand, you will find many, many things to do.
That led to a position on town council when I was 22 years old, and 25 years ago then-Premier Nellie Cournoyea appointed me to the board of directors of the NWT Power Corporation, which took me all over the North and it was a wonderful experience, which ultimately led to being elected to this Chamber.
It is definitely the North of possibilities, and as our Commissioner shared today, much of the work lies ahead. This weekend as we listened to the work that has gone before us. It is an amazing, amazing place of possibility. I look at the work we do, and some days we feel that maybe it’s not that interesting, but when we capture it as the Commissioner did today, it is a wonderful place of potential and opportunity and I’m very proud to be a part of it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
