R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to welcome a constituent who came up from Hay River today for this, Ms. Beatrice Lepine, and I want to thank her for all of her work that she has done for me over the years and all of the work that she does for the community, most recently helping with the families of the fishermen who came up to Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All those in favour? All those opposed?

---Carried

I will rise and report progress.

I will now call for the last time Committee of the Whole to order. "What is the wish of committee" is how I would usually begin, but today is the day for speeches. I will keep it brief, committee. No worries. This is the last time the 18 of us will sit together as Committee of the Whole, so I just want to say a few words.

Prior to becoming an elected Member of this House, I really had no political experience. I hadn't really attended any formal meetings, let alone chaired any. It was a little intimidating to come here and chair Committee of the Whole right off the bat, but I have to thank all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is the last day that these Members will gather together on the floor of this House. Like everyone else here, I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to be a Member of the 18th Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories and to represent the people of Hay River.

To say it has been an honour is an understatement. When I speak at high school graduations, I always tell the graduates it is okay if they don't yet know what they want to be when they grow up. It wasn't until I was 35 and was elected to this position that I really figured out what I wanted to be when...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee would like to report progress, and Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you. There is a motion to report progress. The motion is in order and non-debatable. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a feeling that this is going to go on a while. I want to recognize the returning officers for Hay River, Ms. Marny Twigge and Ms. Heather Coakwell, who do great work as returning officers, but also do a lot of other stuff in the community as well. I want to thank them for, not just this work, but everything that they do. Then my constituency assistant, who hates being recognized, but it's the last day, so I am going to do it: Ms. Anne Peters. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once again, I want to thank our staff for putting together yet another report on top of all of the other reports they had to put together. The committee found itself in a pretty unique position at the tail end of this Assembly. We were tasked with reviewing a number of devolution-related bills from a number of different departments, and I think it offered us a unique perspective, and I think this report is important in highlighting that. It could be very useful for the future Assembly, future Cabinet, and future standing committees.

Because we looked at bills from...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I would like to thank our staff for putting this together. The committee had the idea of doing this report at a time when there wasn't too much of a workload. Soon after that, we received probably the biggest workload that any committee has received since the division of the territory. I was a little concerned this might fall to the wayside, but somehow, our staff managed to analyze the responses from the 19 different businesses and put it into a coherent report. I really appreciate that, and I really thank them for that.

I want to thank the businesses, as well. As...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to recognize a constituent in the gallery, who is also my girlfriend, life partner, spouse, and whatever other terms you can use, Ms. Chantelle Lafferty. She has rearranged her entire work schedule so that she can spend some time with me while I am up in here Yellowknife, even though I am mostly here. I'm never really at home, but I really appreciate it, and I want to welcome her. Thank you.