Elders, Mr. Speaker, Sivuliuqti, Maligaliuqtiit, and honoured guests and visitors, I am pleased to welcome you to the opening of the Sixth Session of the First Legislative Assembly of Nunavut.

This Assembly and the Territory of Nunavut will soon complete our third year. Recent months have been a time to consider what we have accomplished in the first one thousand days.

From that discussion, considerable pride and satisfaction has emerged. It is in the nature and tradition of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit to acknowledge and speak positively of the accomplishments of others, and as Nunavummiut, there have been significant accomplishments that should be recognized:

• The Government of Nunavut, through the work of this Assembly, has authorized the construction or acquisition by the end of the 2002 building season almost 300 public housing units in Nunavut.
• The Government of Nunavut, with the approval of this Assembly, has spent up to 35% of its annual capital budget on schools to teach and train our growing population of youth. We have seen the number of Grade 12 graduates rise steadily.
• Last year twice as many of our students completed Grade 12 compared to 5 years ago. Even more impressively, last year more than six times as many of our students completed Grade 12 compared to 10 years ago, and they did this in communities across Nunavut.
• We have established the capacity to graduate nurses and lawyers, something others had told us we could never do, and we have done it in Nunavut.
• Based on plans made through the Decentralization Secretariat, we have seen more than 400 positions transferred or established in decentralized communities across Nunavut.
• Our contracting back to the former government in Yellowknife has been steadily reduced, bringing home an additional 14 million dollars of our budget annually to be spent in Nunavut.
• And those numbers do not include the Nunavut Power Corporation, which moved to Nunavut on April 1, 2001. It was something others had told us we could never do. It captured an additional 47 million dollars in the economy of Nunavut.

The recent midterm review not only recognized these accomplishments, but it also re-emphasized for all Members the importance of some of the most basic goals of the creation of Nunavut.

It is important for us to remember that Nunavummiut, through the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and the process of setting up this government, did not work to achieve a government that was simply located in Nunavut.

We worked to create a government with its heart and soul in Nunavut. Where Inuit Employment is a reality. Where Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is a living part of the way government operated. Where the Inuktitut language is the means of expression.

These goals must not be lost in the day-to-day pressures and decision-making of government.

Mindful of these goals, the path over the next years has been reviewed and re-oriented. Changes are underway. Ministers have taken up new portfolios. Very shortly, changes will be announced in the public service to support those portfolios. In the new budget year there will be additional funds proposed for, and a new emphasis placed on, the role of the Department of Culture, Language Elders and Youth.

This department is a unique expression of our desires as Nunavummiut. It is a department that is unique in Canada, for the multiple mandates it carries and for the goals it seeks to achieve. These goals will not be achieved by weakening, reducing or taking away departmental authority. Instead, the department needs to be strengthened and given the authority and tools it needs to do the work it was designed to accomplish.

Over the next months we will hear Ministers of this government describe plans to promote and strengthen the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth. Members will hear proposals to increase the role of the department and its authority within government, enhancing its ability to advance the triple goals of Inuit Employment, Inuktitut Language and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.

In this Sixth session two fundamental pieces of legislation will be introduced in this Assembly for consideration.

An Education Act which was developed for, and is suited to our needs and values will be brought to Members for consideration. The proposed statute is the product of the efforts of a working group mandated under the Clyde River Protocol, and extensive consultations by the department.

Through the efforts of the Members of this Assembly, the Act will be reviewed, and its provisions tested, to ensure that the next ten years of education in Nunavut follow the most desirable path.

Since before the Final Agreement was signed in 1993, Nunavummiut have known that the provisions of the Wildlife Act are not consistent with the rights and practices of people in this territory. This Act must be entirely re-written for the Nunavut context, respecting and incorporating the provisions of the Land Claim.

This is an important and sensitive piece of legislation. Members of this Assembly will want to consider with care the proposal that will be brought to you by the Minster of Sustainable Development. Again, in the context of the Clyde River Protocol, Nunavut Tunngavik, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and our government are working together to develop appropriate and timely legislation.

Some say that an Act of this nature will take years to develop; some suggest that Nunavummiut will need considerable guidance to know and express their desires for this legislation. The government proposes extensive and wide spread consultations on the content of this legislation, but is also confident that the terms of the Land Claims agreement and the knowledge and wisdom of Nunavut hunters will provide the guidance necessary to allow the Minister to develop and introduce legislation during this Session.

In the next months the government will bring to this Assembly and release for public consideration a number of evaluations, reports and studies that raise significant issues for the future direction of our government.

Members are aware that Cabinet met in Repulse Bay last September to talk about economic development, and specifically the development of community-based economies.

In the next few weeks, Members and the public will be asked to consider The Naujaat Challenge - proposals and materials leading to an economic development strategy for Nunavut.

This initiative provides an opportunity for Nunavummiut to balance our traditional economy and way of life, with the economic development expectations of our families – especially as they impact on the future for our children.

The government has undertaken a study of the future of our fuel and energy needs. The report deals with the potential of alternative energy sources and the methods of structuring the generation and distribution of fuel and power to our communities. The Ikuma II Report will be released by the Minister Responsible for the Nunavut Power Corporation.

The report continues the efforts of our government to identify and clarify the existence and role of the various utility operations in Nunavut. The complexity of this tangled knot of structures, funds and often hidden subsidies, can lead to competing and ineffective approaches in the ways our government attempts to support and deliver services to Nunavummiut. These approaches must be clarified and simplified, consistent with the direction of the Bathurst Mandate.

The NNI policy has passed its first anniversary and a review of that policy and its impacts has been finalized by the Department of Public Works and Services with the participation of Nunavut Tunngavik. Members should expect to see the final document tabled by the Minister in the early days of this next session.

Nunavummit Kiglisiniartiit is about to release the results of the First Nunavut Household Survey, based on information collected last year. This will provide valuable information on all aspects of life in Nunavut, but in particular on language use, household status and work patterns.

In addition, the Evaluations division of Nunavut Statistics has completed an extensive study of our government’s successes and challenges in moving jobs into Nunavut communities.

Members will receive copies of this report and can anticipate the Minister Responsible for the Decentralization Secretariat will be tabling this document and announcing plans to address its recommendations.

Cabinet has reviewed the need for a single policy focus for Nunavut’s housing issues. Last December, the Nunavut Housing Corporation was added to the portfolio of the current Minister of Finance. The Minister will soon be announcing details of the government's plans to bring employee housing and public housing Under One Roof.

Effective immediately, policy responsibility for the staff housing portfolio will be transferred from the Department of Public Works & Services to the Nunavut Housing Corporation. This will not immediately impact on Housing Associations or staff housing policy, but in the next months Members will be asked to consider budgets and be advised of projects which will show how this new combination of responsibilities will bring much needed new resources and more effective policies and allocations for housing across Nunavut.

Work is underway to provide housing options for GN employees. Programs in Iqaluit, and potentially in four more decentralized communities, are being developed where affordable homeownership units could be constructed and sold to employees at cost. This would permit the continued growth of homeownership, allowing the proceeds from sales to be reinvested in housing options for Nunavut.

Consistent with this approach Members will hear, in the coming months, plans to allow public housing clients to transfer into home ownership, while remaining in their homes. The Nunavut Housing Corporation will continue to increase its housing stock by replacing these units with new public housing units.

In addition, for Nunavummiut who choose to remain in public housing, a new rent scale will be announced that will be more fair, equitable and affordable.

In fiscal matters, our government has revised its Estimates process so that Capital Estimates have been completed in November, permitting better planning and purchasing practices, and savings on construction and sealift costs.

The financial capacity of our Government is maturing. Responding to the recommendations of the Auditor General of Canada, Members will see more detailed budgeting and financial reporting, enhanced financial capacity and training, and a careful review of values in assessing lease and purchase options.

The programs review process launched last year has resulted in the collection of a detailed inventory of programs and expenditures, reconciled against current budgets. It is now planned to move to a more consultative phase.

Information collected will be analyzed and results presented for discussion with Ministers, Members and Nunavummiut from many sectors of our communities. The goal of this process is to ensure that inherited structures and programs are shaped in ways which best reflect the needs and goals of Nunavummiut.

Operating Estimates will be presented by the Minister of Finance during this session.

In the next weeks, during the planned break in Session, the City of Iqaluit will host the Arctic Winter Games, in an effort shared with our cousins in Nuuk, Greenland. To the many Nunavummiut who will be participating as athletes, hosts, organizers, officials, performers and volunteers, I am confident that Members join me in wishing you well in your events and in the friendly and valuable exchanges which surround these games.

Shortly after that Nunavut will host the Canadian Ministers of Sport and the Romanow Commission on Health Care Reform. In mid-June the Canadian Ministers of Aboriginal Affairs will meet in Iqaluit.

In October, Her Royal Highness The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will visit Nunavut.

Each of these events is a sign of the growing stature of Nunavut as part of the Canadian federation and the international community.

Updating the words of my predecessor Helen Maksagak when she opened the First Session of this Assembly on April 1, 1999, to reflect our current situation, I would conclude:

There is still work to be done everywhere. Not everything has worked, or will work, the first time. We accept this and continue to strive. There have been many successes, many positive steps, some delays and false starts.

Sometimes it is hard for us to see the progress Nunavut has made because we are so close to it, we have worked so hard to achieve it, and our hearts are so filled with hopes for its future. But we have made significant progress and Nunavut will continue to make progress.

Again, borrowing from Nunavut’s first Commissioner:

This is still our government, we are still building it, we still own it, and we still have the responsibility to make it work.

As Members of this Assembly it is your responsibility to continue to work towards the goals you have in common; to achieve the vision you have identified in the Bathurst Mandate; and to ensure that whatever you do in this new Session advances the interests of all Nunavummiut.

I now declare open this Sixth Session of the First Legislative Assembly of Nunavut.

I would ask everyone to join myself, the Speaker, and Members of this Assembly for refreshments before the resumption of the Order paper.