Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to take the opportunity in my Member’s statement to congratulate Dennis Bevington on his decisive win, re-elected as our Member of Parliament for what will probably be another four years.
I would also like to congratulate and thank the other candidates who brought their names forward: Ms. Lee and Mr. Handley, both former colleagues of ours in this Legislature; very credible candidates. Also Ms. Bonnie Dawson and Mr. Eli Purchase, who represented the Animal Rights Alliance and the Green Party.
I would like to particularly thank Ms. Lee today. She had what was a rather quick departure from our midst and she had served with us for 12 years. I wanted to publicly today thank her for those 12 years of service in this Legislature to the people of the Northwest Territories.
---Applause
Of course, my male colleagues this morning asked me if she gave me this jacket and, no, she did not.
---Laughter
The political landscape in Canada has changed as of the election day. We now have a majority Conservative government. It is now incumbent on us as an Assembly and those who return to the 17th Assembly to work together with that majority Conservative government in Ottawa and also to forge a stronger and closer working relationship with our Member of Parliament that may not have existed to the extent that it should have in the past.
Partisan politics is what it is. It is a reality in southern Canada; it exists. When you look at a map of Canada now, you see Conservative representation in every jurisdiction except for ours. That does not mean that we cannot still work with a governing party and with the Government of Canada in all the parties that it represents. I think this is an opportunity for us to look at the aspirations and needs of our territory, our goals, and to be very proactive in taking this opportunity to work closely going forward.
Before the federal election, Hunter Tootoo, one of our colleagues from Nunavut, and I were on a cross-country “The Current,” talking about consensus government. I guess you can be obstructionist and uncooperative in any setting and in any government, and it’s my hope that going forward in the next four years that we will see more working together in our federal Parliament and more accomplished.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
