Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm all about economic growth, always have been. Very pro-business. A long-time resident. Born and raised here, you know, and I wish I would -- when we were going through the capital estimates to cost this budget and see by community. And when I see two MLAs from Yellowknife get up and I bet you -- I bet you 75 percent of these capital estimates is for the capital. And you have two MLAs from Yellowknife making those kind of comments.

I did not do that because I think if we're going to have economic recovery, Mr. Speaker, this is the way to go. I think they have to be more careful on the way the contracts are given out. I think they have to be more careful on the terms of the contract. I think they have to make sure that the money stays in the North. I am sure that we're going to have a new procurement policy, and those are going to make sure that our people are looked after in the North.

What comes out of this budget, there's a few extra buildings for regional centres and communities. We get the crumbs, always. And we're very happy with the budget because we know at least we're going to have some new buildings this time.

That hasn't happened in regional centres and communities for some time. And it disturbs me that it comes across this way when economic recovery is extremely important during this pandemic and, hopefully, we get through this pandemic.

Businesses are suffering, large and small. And it trickles down to the entire Northwest Territories. If you don't have business, you don't have no social programs.

I feel really strongly that, you know, when you talk about the negative part of rebuilding, it's not okay. You have to be in business. I've been in business for 50 years. The only way we put food on the table is because we were in business. We had to work really hard to do that. It wasn't given to us. There's lots of us like that in -- and also in Indigenous culture, you know.

Growing up, many of us -- my father had to go out on the land when I first grew up. I worked for 50 cents an hour when I was in high school in order to get a new sweater for school.

So there's a lot of disconnect when I hear people that have not been born here and gone through all those hardships in the North and making those kind of decisions on behalf of our own people.

I fully support this budget because there has to be economic growth in the business sector, in the wider sector of government. Mistakes are always made. Mistakes are made even in business. But you correct them and move on and learn from them.

And so that is the reason I will be voting for this budget. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We came into this Assembly and we had a pretty tight fiscal situation, and so I have a dream. I have a dream of leaving the next Assembly $100 million of room in their debt ceiling. Enough to pay for a bad forest fire season or a flood but probably not both, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we are on track to spend more money than any Assembly in history. We are on track to also add more debt than any Assembly in history. This budget is worth $500 million, Mr. Speaker.

And, you know, I actually have very little issue with the individual projects in here. You know, an NWT budget has never been voted down in the history of the Assembly. We are very much a rubber stamp institution when it comes to budgets. Sometimes some small changes are made in O and M but, in many ways, capital is the one thing people agree on. It creates jobs. It builds the economy. I understand the tendency to want to spend $500 million here. However, I think we have to understand how the capital budget works. It is a snapshot in time.

We are actually spending, when you total up all over the projects, well over $2 billion here, Mr. Speaker. This specific capital budget is about 40 percent funded by the GNWT, 60 percent by the federal government. That is good. But when you add up, there's some math I just cannot understand. I have tried, with the publicly available numbers here, but no matter how I crunch the numbers we are set to exceed our debt ceiling with the capital we are planning let alone other major infrastructure projects, let alone operations and maintenance.

Mr. Speaker, there's a couple things I want to speak to but one is my frustration with what is publicly available out there.

We all, in this House, have a copy of the acquisition plan. It can tell you the individual price of projects and what we're doing in future years. That's not a publicly available document so I can't actually speak to specific numbers of projects. But I would like the GNWT, just for one week, to try and operate with what is publicly available, and I think we would fix our transparency problem. If you go over to Yukon for instance, you can see their five-year acquisition plan. Every single project has the range of what they expect to spend on it. Every single project is then tracked and reported on once it is concluded. We asked our staff to try and track a project through the years in the capital budget, and it's next to an impossible task to tell you what the total cost actually comes out. Add on the fact that we often get sued and then settle with contractors, it's an even more impossible task to tell you what something actually ends up costing in the public accounting.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I think it needs to be clear that this capital budget means a cut to programs and services. That is what we are voting for today.

Down south, you could argue that there is an option to increase revenue. I don't think that is on the table in the Northwest Territories. We are not getting $500 million out of our citizens through taxes any time soon.

The extent to which it actually costs in the O and M is a question the Department of Finance could not answer with any clarity. I get it is a complicated question but the disconnect between our capital budget and our O and M budget leads us to, once again, math that simply does not add up to me, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I want to admit that I will be voting against this capital budget but I am a relatively cheap vote. I would have voted for this capital budget with five more million dollars in housing, permanent long-term funding for our housing infrastructure.

We heard the other day they have a $1 billion backlog in infrastructure. They spend $10 million a year, Mr. Speaker. At that rate, in a hundred years they will have got to their infrastructure backlog and we build houses to last about 40 years, Mr. Speaker. The math does not add up.

Mr. Speaker, this budget is also taking $2.5 million away from our communities. Priorities throughout this Assembly have been housing. People have to have a roof over their heads and our communities, the foundation of our society, have to be strong. This budget is actually removing capital money from our communities who are stretched so thin you can see through them.

Mr. Speaker, if those two things were to happen, you know, less than a half a percent of this total budget, I probably would have voted in favour but we could not even get an increase to the housing capital which is, in this specific budget, building zero new houses; or, our community infrastructure which, in this case, is actually removing $2.5 million.

Mr. Speaker, we know that we spend over $68 million a year on our roads, and we've heard from the Minister that is not nearly enough. We know that the breakdown costs for our deferred maintenance is $465 million. We allocate $5 million a year for deferred maintenance. That would take 90 years to catch up on our deferred maintenance backlog. At that point, every single asset in our portfolio would have to also be rebuilt. The math is not adding up. We are not maintaining what we have in any state.

We have an absolutely terrible track record of maintaining what we have, and I think it is very tempting to build new things. But until that math is there and until that responsibility is there, I believe we are setting future Assemblies and future generations up for failure to have more crumbling infrastructure.

This budget does not even get into the power corporation, which we know also needs billions of dollars to keep its infrastructure in a state where they can continue to provide power to the people of the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I know that this budget then builds certain human infrastructure and a great example is long-term care beds. We all know we need those long-term care facilities. But I still don't have a clear explanation on how we're going to afford them. Each of those beds costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate. We know there is a $120 million deficit in our health care system. And the department has committed to a stabilization plan which, to me, is actually just a vague term to meaning cuts to a health care system right now that is being held together with glue and strings and losing nurses at such a fast rate. So on one hand, we are asking our health authority to, you know, add tens of millions of dollars to their budget through long-term care. On the other hand, we are asking them to do a deficit reduction. Mr. Speaker, I believe that the fair conclusion there is that our health system is actually underfunded and perhaps the priority of this Assembly just has to be offer basic health care to people, Mr. Speaker. I am concerned we are on a path where that will be very impossible to do within our fiscal capacity.

Mr. Speaker, there are so many priorities in this House, and I don't think the hard work has been done to prioritize the capital.

I can't tell you how much the school in Colville Lake is going to cost; that's not a figure I'm allowed to say; that's not a figure the Minister will say publicly; but I believe that if we run the math on building a school of that size in Colville Lake, and we apply to all of the schools we need to build, we come to a number that is actually impossible. It's impossible to build schools of that scale in all of our communities, Mr. Speaker. I don't see how this math is adding up, and I don't have the public information to conclude that.

In this capital budget, we are building a line to Whati. I don't have a lot of issues to this project but I think this project makes the most sense if Fortune Minerals signs into a long-term power purchasing agreement and actually buys some power from us. That is about the only way we could justify the expense of this project. I know it's a goal to get communities off hydro. That is something I would like to see but I am being asked to vote for a transmission line without being told the total cost of it, without knowing whether we are actually going to sell power to Fortune Minerals, and without knowing the root of it.

I believe there is something going on where the Department of Infrastructure gets its money into the capital budget far easier than any program or service. I would really like to see the success rate of infrastructure going to FMB for those communities.

In this capital budget is money for community hydro. Apparently, we got it out of ICIP funding. Great. When asked about it, the Minister didn't even know what community it was going in. We are spending tens of millions of dollars and we don't even know where it's going yet. I don't understand how that gets through ICIP, how that gets through FMB, and how it now puts a tens-of-million-dollar obligation on our budget without even knowing which community it is in, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, that's not to say I don't support those projects. That's not to say I don't support community hydro. I would just like to see a bit more due diligence in connecting the capital budget to operations and management to an overall plan for our fiscal stability. I expect, and I hope, the next operations budget starts to make some cuts. There is at least $50 million in that budget I believe I could find to get us on a path. This budget is inherently linked being connected to the operations budget -- maintenance budget. I do not know what is planned for the next O and M budget but I suspect it is a status quo budget that will take us right up to our debt ceiling and well beyond that and put our next Assembly in the very difficult position of, day one, making hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to see a meaningful plan with our Power Corp. I would like to see a meaningful plan with what is going on with our community infrastructure deficit, our own infrastructure deficit, our road infrastructure deficit. I believe we need to start maintaining what we have before we look into building more.

Mr. Speaker, I believe $500 million could be better spent. It could be better spent making sure our citizens have roofs over their heads and our communities have infrastructure. They have roads and sewer and recreational facilities that work, and they can provide a strong sense of community. I believe that is our priority. I believe it's insulting to pass this budget that builds zero new houses for the Housing Corp and actually takes money away from our communities, yet passes the single largest capital budget in GNWT history. And for that reason, I don't believe the work has been done, or the due diligence by this Cabinet, to actually take us where we need to be and I will be voting against this budget. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Yellowknife North.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Look, I realize I'm the only thing standing between a pizza party and my colleagues here so I want to recognize and thank the Minister of Finance for the collaborative discussions that led to concurrence in Committee of the Whole to proceed with an appropriation bill, and I meant that.

However, this is the largest ever capital project for the Northwest Territories at $502 million. In short, we are overspending on capital and not spending enough on the right priorities, in my view.

There is a relationship between capital and our programs and services. It's called the fiscal responsibility policy that requires us to have an operating surplus on our operations side to spend money on buildings and big infrastructure. When we overspend big on capital, we have a lot less money to spend on programs and services for our residents. It's left us scrambling to find matching funding from the federal government. Even if the feds gave us free dollars, we still have to find the operations and maintenance money for large projects.

For example, the $14 million that Infrastructure is now scrambling to find for the upkeep of the Inuvik to Tuk Highway; or, the ongoing service payments for the Tlicho All-Season Highway that will cost us more than $10 million a year for the next 25 years. All of which eat into our ability to pay for programs and services.

As to further evidence of overspending on capital, look at the 2019-20 public accounts where GNWT failed to comply with our own fiscal responsibility policy. GNWT overspent on capital by $32 million with no consequences. We cannot get a clear commitment from the Minister to review that policy in light of this overspending and/or the increasing reliance on P3s as a way to finance large projects.

In June of this year, the Finance Minister said, during the budget dialogue, "over the medium term the fiscal situation is unsustainable and projections show that the borrowing limit could be exceeded by 2024-25 even though the limit was increased."

In other words, we are spending too much on capital and not doing enough to raise revenues. The Minister said that we need to "generate more cash from operating surpluses to lessen the borrowing pressures." There are basically two ways to do that - raise more revenues or slash programs and services to continue to spend on capital.

Let's look at the revenue side. The Finance Minister only released the revenue options paper two days before the budget dialogue after my many requests. In my view, this Cabinet is not serious about raising revenues. It gave away $21 million in revenues to Husky Oil in a significant discovery licence with zero dollars in rent over fifteen years. It rolled back the small business tax and did nothing to replace the $1.4 million a year in lost revenue.

I've been pushing for a fairness review of our taxation system for six years, to no avail. When I've suggested working with federal opposition parties to increase our portion of own-source revenues under the devolution agreement, it has fallen on deaf ears.

We haven't yet come to a point where we are slashing programs and services as happened in the last Assembly. But the mysterious government renewal initiative will have to come up with millions of dollars of savings to stop us from hitting the debt wall.

We got a public fiscal update from the Finance Minister on September 15th. That presentation made a number of points that show we are on an unsustainable path. As I said before, we're not just on the edge of a fiscal cliff, we're over the side now. We're still in the early stages of economic recovery with a shifting workforce but we have lots of additional expenses including COVID and flood recovery. When temporary federal capital funding is removed, we are in a permanent deficit position. Debt has grown at a rate of 17.2 percent annually since 2008-09, almost four times the rate of revenue growth. Our ability to spend on capital will decrease dramatically and the Minister predicted it will be less than half what it is now in a couple of years.

I'm all for stimulus spending as part of economic recovery, but we don't seem to be able to get money out the door right now. I couldn't get a concise answer on what the actual carryovers are in the capital estimates but if it is anything like last year's capital budget, that was about 50 percent.

I asked in the last Assembly for carryovers to be tracked carefully so that we actually understand the reasons for that. I am not convinced that a system is yet in place to do that. Are we getting massive carryovers because we've maxed out our contractor capacity; the ability for our economy to do the work that the government intends to contract? Is it as a result of cash flow issues? Problems with our capacity to actually get the funding out the door? I don't know. We don't seem to have a good understanding of why carryovers continue to take place and seem to be on the increase. If you don't track it and understand the reason, we can't work on how to fix it.

I also wonder why we are rushing to spend money that we can't get out the door during a pandemic. At the same time, the procurement review is still underway with changes unlikely to be fully implemented during the 2022-23 fiscal year. Why rush to spend money now when we should change procurement to retain more benefits in the NWT from government spending?

Now, I want to turn to what spending Cabinet is proposing in these capital estimates.

It's my understanding that after a recent increase to the federal borrowing limit, we only have about $300 million left. How could we ever possibly hope to do the big infrastructure projects, whether it's the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Slave Geological Province Corridor, the Taltson Expansion, when all we have left is $300 million? I just don't get it. We need to stop pretending we can ever do all of these and focus on only one if we must, and That should be the Mackenzie Valley Highway if it can be done in small sections where communities can actually benefit from the construction work.

The contract spending on the Slave Geological Province work over the last five years, and Taltson Hydro Expansion, shows that about 10 percent of the money actually stayed in the North. Why are we doing these projects if only 10 percent of the money is staying in the North?

The Finance Minister said in her opening remarks that we are going to spend $150 million on roads in the capital budget. That's almost 15 times the amount we are going to spend on new and renovated housing. I understand that there may be other federal funding not in the capital estimates for housing and that may be fixed in future versions, but we continue to spend more on roads than housing - a lot more.

This is totally out of whack with our reality where 43 percent of the NWT dwellings in 2019 had at least one housing problem. Those problems relate to affordability, suitability, and adequacy. If that's not bad enough, core housing needs have actually increased by 11 percent over the last ten years. At last estimate, there are almost 1000 people on the waiting list for housing in the Northwest Territories. That's a shameful record that is perpetuated in these capital estimates. I fully understand that most of the capital funds for the NWT Housing Corporation flow through the main estimates but clearly we are not spending enough on housing to even start to make a difference.

Yes, there are some items I can and do support in the capital estimates, and those will undoubtedly bring economic and social benefits. However, I'm voting against this capital budget to send Cabinet a clear message to get our fiscal house in order. We've got two years left to steer this shipyard in the right direction, Get serious about raising some revenues, and start spending on real priorities like housing. And Mr. Speaker, I would urge Members on our side, if you can't vote against the budget please abstain and start to send that message to Cabinet on the other side. Merci, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Frame Lake.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 45: Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) 2022-2023, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded a vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Bill 45 has had second reading.

Second reading of bills. Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 23, Bill 29, Committee Report 21-19(2), Committee Report 23-19(2), with Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes in the chair.

Thank you, Minister. Motion is in order. To the principle of the bill?

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 45: Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) 2022-2023, be read for the second time.

This bill authorizes the Government of the Northwest Territories to make appropriations for infrastructure expenditures for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Motion is in order and is non-debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Bill 45 has had first reading.

First reading of bills. Second reading of bills. Minister responsible for Finance.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 45: Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) 2022-2023, be read for the first time.