This week marked 10 years since my election as MP.
I am so proud to have been elected to represent our region – our north – for the past 10 years.
When I was first elected, I was very clear. Keeping in touch and speaking out would be my top priorities.
For the past 10 years there’s been a lot of keeping in touch. Visits by road, air, rail, winter road, snowmobile and boat. And countless door-to-door visits to meet people and communities across our north.
In many ways it has been difficult seeing the degree to which we have Third World conditions right here in our north. Seeing resource-based communities having the value-added jobs stripped out as billions of dollars in profits leave our region or country.
How can this be? In a region – in a country – that produces so much wealth, how can it be that more and more people are being left behind and more and more people are living in the margins?
Working with people and communities and organizations in our region across Canada, the answer for me is just as it was when I first entered politics more than a decade ago.
It didn’t just happen.
It’s clear that we have a system that is failing people. A system that is failing our environment.
It is also clear, now more than ever – we need to speak out about the need for system change that will bring real change to our region and to Canadians as a whole.
This is why I have continued to do what I committed to do a decade ago and that is to speak out. To speak out on behalf of the people and communities in our region.
Together we have fought for fairness. Fought for justice. We have fought to change the system that is leaving more and more people behind and destroying our environment.
Looking ahead, I am more idealistic and more optimistic than I have ever been. I have seen the degree to which people care, the way in which they are fighting back, the degree to which we can make a difference – together.
I would like to thank everyone across our region that have supported and encouraged me over the past 10 years. My commitment to you is the same as it was 10 years ago when I was first elected – to keep in touch and to fight everyday for social and economic justice. To fight for a better environment. For our region and our country.
