Question has been called.

Members, pursuant to Rule 10.3(1), a recorded vote is required. When the clerk calls on you, please state whether you are for, against, or are abstaining from second reading. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Premier. To the principle of the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also am kind of really heartbroken in what I'm hearing today, in honesty.

This Cabinet has been different. It's tried different. And those that were in the Assembly in the last Assembly know that, know that we've been working differently. And they know -- I think that Members that were here, ,and current Members as well, many of them, know that my heart is in the right place, and I am the Premier and I represent our Cabinet.

I've been asked -- I'm a Yellowknife MLA, Mr. Speaker. If I was only concerned about Yellowknife and my own riding and my own get re-elections, then I would be voting everything to stay in the capital city. But I have not done that. I haven't done that in this Assembly, and I haven't done that in the last Assembly.

I've been asked in this House to put single service windows -- single window service centres in Yellowknife because we have them in small communities, and I've said no, against my own riding.

I've been asked when I was the housing minister why don't we put more services in Yellowknife. I put shelters outside of Yellowknife in the small communities, three shelters outside of Yellowknife, because I recognize the needs of the small communities that were needed.

When I was the MACA minister, Mr. Speaker you know that, when I was asked would I take back the money of the small communities that were overfunded, I said no, I wouldn't. I would let them stand because they were still -- even though they were overfunded, they still need more support.

When I was the education minister, I was asked -- I was expected, I'm a Yellowknife MLA, I could have said the headquarters shall be in the capital. We have the population. I said no, the headquarters are safe where it is.

I think I've shown over my term in the last six years that I do care about small communities. And I've seen with all of these Cabinet ministers that they also care about small communities. At no time have I heard at the Cabinet table that this shall be in Yellowknife because Yellowknife deserves it. In fact, I've heard the opposite. I've heard Yellowknife Members in Cabinet stick up for small communities and say that we need to support the small communities. So I know that whatever we say won't make a difference. I know that people make up their minds before; that's just how things go. But I do say that I do take offence, Mr. Speaker, on the implication that this Cabinet cares about the capital city more than small communities, because in my opinion from a personal standpoint and from all of the Members in this Cabinet, I have seen and experienced the opposite. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's all I will say.

Thank you, Minister. To the principle of the bill. Honourable Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today we are at a giant crossroads. It had always been my approach, and it will remain my approach for the rest of my time here, that I was elected first and foremost to serve the people of the Northwest Territories, all of them, from Fort Smith to Sachs Harbour and back again.

And I pay special attention to my constituency, which is Yellowknife Centre, which is a very diverse constituency. I have the bulk of the homeless population. There's some really fancy houses over on Matonabee, lots of apartments, apartments that are so densely populated they're bigger than any riding of the small community variety.

It's my approach that what's good for all of us is good for Yellowknife Centre. We may not see in Yellowknife Centre the immediate benefits of the Tlicho All-Season Road because it doesn't come anywhere close to Yellowknife Centre. We've got a road. But I think that we understand the principle that lifting up everybody else lifts us up too; that a rising tide does, indeed, flow to all boats. And so I feel that the best example I can give of this approach is the way we handled the pandemic.

We could have divided the money we received to manage the pandemic into 33 communities, or into 19 constituencies, and we could have said when that money was gone I'm very sorry, it's gone. But no. We decided that we needed to approach the pandemic on a collective basis. So if there was a big outbreak in Fort Good Hope, we threw everything we had at it. If there was a big outbreak in Inuvik, then we threw everything we had at it. We didn't start charging back people based on the per capita population of those who needed testing, needed vaccines, needed the treatment, needed hospitalization, the use of ventilators and so on. No. This is not how health works.

Health is a collective undertaking that provides service to everyone regardless of where they live. And the medical travel, the specialists who work at telehealth where people can call in and get advice from their small community health centres, that is the collective approach that we take in health.

It pains me enormously that this is not something that is supported by people I'm frankly surprised who don't support it, that they're parochial self-interest is preeminent and that the collective interest is secondary. It's frustrating. But it is what it is. And I would like to say nothing about consensus government. I think it is completely misunderstood.

If you think this budgeting process is hard, I invite you to look at party politics. You see it on the day it's produced and then that's -- that's that. There is no opportunity to go through weeks of negotiations to increase the budget in areas that are important to nonexecutive council members.

I want to thank, in particular, the Minister of Finance. The amount of patience that she's shown in this process, and leadership, is extraordinary. And I commend her for that, along with my Cabinet colleagues, as we've sat through hours of discussion about what the budget would be and once it was tabled, what it could become. I'm very sorry that we are at this point now but this is the point that we're at. We have one more to do. Let's hope it works. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. To the principle of the bill. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try to be as succinct as possible here. First of all, I represent five small communities and one regional centre. So when I'm sitting on Cabinet, I'm listening to my colleagues talk, the departments talk, and I'm also sitting on a variety of committees of Cabinet. So we may not get the -- the information that the regular Members get on their committees, but I can guarantee you the opportunity to sit in and have the conversations about budgets and the process at the table -- I know myself, and I can't speak for Minister Chinna, but I should just say that I've heard her speak about small communities, the importance of smaller communities. We -- this Cabinet here is very reflective of what the Northwest Territory is. It's about small communities, regional centres, and the city of Yellowknife. We have representatives of all three in here as we work on the budget.

Mr. Speaker, when we sit there and talk about it, and there was this old adage way back when, if everybody's not happy it means you've done a good job in the negotiation process.

Am I happy about this? No. There's things in here that I wish I wanted to see. There was some of the negotiations that frustrated me because there was things missing. But at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is the residents of the Northwest Territories. We are here to make this better for people. It's about the residents. At the end of the day, they are our bosses. That's who we're here working for. And I think, and I applaud Minister Wawzonek in her approach. Is it frustrating? We could find three. I've seen it previously. I've seen the government before I became in to be a Member and before I saw -- became a Member of Cabinet.

We're doing business differently. We're having those hard conversations. We're having those negotiations. We're talking. It doesn't seem like we're listening but we're listening. We're having those hard, frank conversations. And we're able to see improvements in the budget be able by the Members. Is it perfect? No. It's never perfect. But I think Minister Green talked about give me $500 million and we would have treatment centres across the North. Well, you give me X amount of dollars, and I can fix a whole bunch of other issues. But we don't have all the money. We don't have all the money we need. We're $1.5 billion in debt. We're getting closer to the debt ceiling. So we got to find creative ways of doing things. And I applaud the regular Members for their negotiations and bringing forth ways to improve things.

Housing has been a struggle for 50 years. We've had the NWT Housing Corporation here. The things that -- we would love to see houses in here, every community. We joke around, I'll give you a house, I'll give you a house, I'll give you a house. We'd love to do that. Is there overcrowding? Yes. I see it every day in my riding. But I work with the Minister on trying to help my constituents like the other regular Members do.

Past experience is when you sit there and you look at big projects. Stanton Hospital, how does that help Somba K'e? Deh Cho Bridge, how does that help Jean Marie? The other highway systems in other regions, how does that help Nahendeh riding? It doesn't, but it helps the people of the Northwest Territories. That's what we're there for working collectively on this. We need to be able to do this.

As the Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs, are we underfunded in the municipal funding gap? We hear all the time are we looking for creative ways of finding solutions to it? Yes. I am now working more hand in hand with the president of NWTAC. We're trying to find alternative ways to get more money into the Northwest Territories. We are going to work together. We're working to -- to try to do a tri-territorial approach to it. So again, it's about how we are able to do things.

At the end of the day, am I happy with this budget? No. I would love to see more things happen in my riding. I would love to see more things happen in other ridings because, you know, when we talk about it, it's about putting food on the table, looking after the people, addressing homelessness, addressing people that are less fortunate. But we're not -- we don't have the endless pot of money.

So I applaud -- again, the Minister of Finance has been true to her word, is that we're going to do consensus government.

What does consensus government mean? It's about working together. It's about listening to people. It's about understanding and understanding and respectful of other people's differing opinions. Because at the end of the day, it's about working together. It's about listening. We need to listen to the residents of the Northwest Territories with the resources that we have.

So is the budget perfect? No. I keep on saying it's not perfect. But the work that's been done has been very helpful.

So Mr. Speaker, I know I said I was going to try to be short, and now I'm almost a little bit longer than I wanted to be. But I am going to support this budget, and I applaud the Minister of Finance to continue on this path. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. To the principle of the bill. Minister for Lands.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I did have the opportunity to speak yesterday in Committee of the Whole and made a number of comments at that point about consensus government and about the process by which the budget is built. I don't want to repeat all of that, Mr. Speaker, but I do have a few additional comments I want to make today.

Mr. Speaker, I'm very frequently asked what am I going to do about the debt ceiling, what am I going to do about rising costs of debt, what are we going to do about the rising costs of fuel, what are we going to do about the rising costs of living, what will we do about the rising costs of inflation, how will we manage our rising expenditures when there's stagnant revenues.

Mr. Speaker, the solution isn't necessarily to spend more. And in the case of being right now in the midst of a crisis where we've been coming out of two years of a pandemic where we had to respond to floods in small communities, and did, indeed, respond to those floods in small communities, Mr. Speaker, we are constantly having to adjust how we deal with priorities across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, the budget doesn't get divided up by 13 -- 33 communities. It would be unfair because the small communities, if we did that, wouldn't get a fair share. It would go to the community that has 50 percent of the population and not to the small communities. Would there being money left over to be rebuilding the flood ravished communities that we had? Perhaps not, Mr. Speaker. But that is simply, again, not how we budget in the Government of the Northwest Territories. We budget at our -- best we can based on need, and that's done across departments.

Mr. Speaker, I can paint two alternatives. I spoke yesterday quite a lot about consensus. I believe in consensus government. I believe in the process of negotiations. I do believe in the process of hearing from MLAs. I believe every other Minister feels the same. The Premier's given us very clear instructions that we're always to do that, that we're here to build consensus and that dialog.

And yes, Mr. Speaker, we are not all agreeing today. That is more than apparent. And I want to say right now before I go any further, I will still be available to speak to every MLA tomorrow. I consider the relationship one that is always to be rebuilt, built, grow, change. And we're always going to learn something from one another, Mr. Speaker.

But there's an alternative to the way this process was, and that would be that three MLAs come forward to me, tell me three projects, we build them into the budget, and that that's the end of the discussion, that there are no negotiations, that we don't try to collectively say which topic area, which subject area should we add something more to, which area can we all agree we could probably trim something from without impacting ongoing programs and services.

That's the kind of difficult discussions that we've been having. They are hard. And they're not perfect. And we're still operating within a situation where we have limited funds where we have to still ensure that we're providing every program and service in every community across 33 communities and across a huge geographic region.

It's actually a very complicated thing. It's actually much more complicated, I'd suggest, than perhaps being one of the provinces where there's a much larger opportunity to raise revenues where economies of scale operate differently. We don't have those benefits here. But we have 33 communities that we're serving, many of whom don't have access to roads and all-weather roads.

So Mr. Speaker, the budget process that we have is not one where we pick three projects and then moved forward and assume that it's all sewn up.

Every time we start the budget process, Mr. Speaker, capital budget and operating budget, I know that we will be facing a potential vote. I know that I will face criticism or that we as a government will face criticism of the budget from Members from -- for a variety of different reasons. That's a very real risk we take every time. And -- but it's a much harder road to take to sort of sit down and try to find what areas we can do some changes in, what programs we can make changes to, what services we can make changes to at this stage that will actually reflect some of the needs and discussions.

And in this particular case, those discussions did land largely on housing and housing changes and housing supports. And the changes we're making are significant. I'm grateful for the discussions we've had because it's changes that we're going to be making to the Housing Corporation's permanent budget are going to be the kinds of programming changes where those dollars are the kinds of dollars that go out to individuals in the communities and to the communities so that they are spending on the seniors program, on the fuels program, on programs that -- again, that are -- that are spent in the communities and by those communities. I think that was an exceptional outcome that I was proud about.

And I think there's a couple of MLAs, too, who've landed on the value -- and we don't know yet the cost of this, but landed on the fact that nonprofit sector, those that provide government programs and services directly, are now not -- are going to be looking at a very different way of approach from the Government of the Northwest Territories. This is quite huge, and it is potentially a significant cost. But it's the right thing to do. And I was, again, very pleased that that's one of the outcomes of our discussions.

There's a few quick comments, Mr. Speaker, just specifically about things that have been raised here today that I want to speak to. And I'm speaking to them because I'm, you know, again at this point, some of the conversations are now being had here on the floor, and so just as I would in question period want to give information fulsomely, I want to take this opportunity here.

Community funding. Mr. Speaker, every -- what Yellowknife MLA hears about underfunding of community. Every Yellowknife MLA hears about it because Yellowknife is one of those communities where the community government stands up regularly and leads the charge for underfunding of municipal and community governments.

The mayor of Yellowknife is very vocal, and she certainly makes sure that every Yellowknife MLA is well aware of the impacts of being an underfunded community, particularly being a community that winds up actually providing services to residents who come here from across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, as it is, the 2014 calculation that's been used, as I understand it, actually is some of the smaller communities are overfunded on that calculation, not underfunded. My understanding is they will not see any of their funds drawn back or clawed back. But it's just worth remembering that it's some of the larger communities that are actually the most underfunded on that basis.

Homelessness, Mr. Speaker, again, we all agreed this was a critical area. And that was, again, there was an option here where the Yellowknife projects could simply have been funded internally for a year, and that could have just been done from the existing appropriations, and that would be the end of that. Instead, by adding to those budgets, by adding to the opportunity so that homelessness can see an increase in funds, means that more projects get funded. It won't just be Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker. More projects get funded.

In fact, I'll just note that this budget, if it passes, includes $752,000 earmarked for Hay River and Fort Simpson, Mr. Speaker.

And with respect to the tiny homes project, Mr. Speaker, I do want to be very clear. This Cabinet, certainly myself, I know my colleague the Minister of Housing, are thrilled to have new ideas, are thrilled to have new opportunities. But Mr. Speaker, that project's not shovel ready. And I know the MLA and I might disagree about this -- we often agree about a great many things but this is one that we don't agree on. In my view, it's not shovel ready, Mr. Speaker. But my hope is that with the commitments that we've made to get the right folks in there and to have these conversations, that it will be shovel ready and that it will be ready for funding. I think that would be an outstanding outcome of the discussions that we've had.

Mr. Speaker, I'd be remiss, since the Department of Finance was put on the block here, not to explain it perhaps again that the increase in the Department of Finance is largely -- well, there's three big lings, Mr. Speaker. The Tlicho All-Season Road gets funded by the Department of Finance. Those funds, that payment now as a P3, is coming out of the Department of Finance. And so there was a significant increase in our budget to pay for the Tlicho All-Season Road out to the community of Whati in Monfwi.

Similarly, the asset retirement obligation changes in public sector accounting standards is in there. Insurance premiums for the entire set of buildings and assets that we have across the GNWT in all 33 communities is funded by the Department of Finance. That's where you're seeing the increase, Mr. Speaker. That, and one new position being funded out of all of that. And Mr. Speaker, there's -- beyond that, this budget -- in my budget speech, I talked about the things that are -- you know, it's not just about flashy new things. It's about getting done what needs to get done.

I know that -- I believe the Minister of Justice already spoke to this but just -- it has to be highlighted, Mr. Speaker, that there's two positions -- two additional RCMP positions and associated vehicles going to Behchoko. There's an additional RCMP position going up to Tuktoyaktuk. There's $809,000 to pay for RCMP housing across the Northwest Territories right now.

ENR sees money going in for over a hundred -- over a million for the conservation and recovery of caribou. That's something that benefits a number of small communities and regional centres in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, it's the concern around that this budget doesn't pay for or doesn't help small communities and it's not divided that way. It's not, and it can't be. The headquarters functions of a large organization of any government perform functions and perform roles that benefit the entire territory, that benefit every department that go into every community. I just want to give you four or five examples briefly, Mr. Speaker, before I conclude.

Indigenous -- or the Executive and Indigenous Affairs, it's a department that doesn't always get as much attention. This is the department that's -- that's the Premier's to manage. But Mr. Speaker, this is where the negotiators reside. This is where the negotiations of land claims and self-government agreements take place. That's a critical department to see that it continues to function.

Similarly, Mr. Speaker, this is responsible for the Council of Leaders. They're responsible for the GNWT's participation at the intergovernmental council. These are critical things that are -- that are flagship things that I think this government and this entire Assembly has something to be proud of. They're involved in seeing the advancement of UNDRIP, of the United Nations Declaration. These are tremendous opportunities where the Government of the Northwest Territories or the whole of the Northwest Territories shows a real place of leadership. And while we have lots of work to do, we have an opportunity to be leaders in Canada. But this is where that -- this is where that's happening, is in the headquarters function where that budget goes.

Also, there is the gender-equity unit. Mr. Speaker, as the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, the work on the national inquiry action plan response is so important. There's engagement happening right now across the Northwest Territories. And it is being led by someone who resides in a headquarters department. That's quite true, and that department goes community by community to be engaged and to develop this action plan. I'm deeply proud that work is happening. It's not a budget that gets divided by community. It's work that has to happen in all communities.

Education, Health, I mean the Department of Health and Social Services is almost one-third of the entire budget of the Government of the Northwest Territories. And they've led a response to the pandemic in the last two years that has seen, overall, very positive outcomes for us. And also pays for things like medical travel. You know, it has quite a number of things where -- again these aren't the exciting parts of the budget but these are the things that help people day to day in small communities, in regional centres, and in Yellowknife. They help -- the budget there doesn't get parsed out because medical travel doesn't get parsed out. We don't say that only a handful of folks from one community have been flown out, that there's no more money for that community. That's not how this works. There's always going to be more money that when -- when somebody is going to have to travel out of a small community, we're going to keep funding it. That's how this works.

And so, Mr. Speaker, I do hope and I look forward to the opportunity to vote on this budget. I mean, there's certainly no surprise that I'll be voting in favour of the budget.

I do want to assure Members I'm hearing their frustrations. That's why I'm offering to go myself to meet, to discuss the functioning and the preparing of the budget, to better understand how the money is spent, where it's spent, how it's divided, how those decisions are made. I also want to have the opportunity to make sure that there aren't programs or services that can't be further tweaked and aligned to better service communities. That is, to me, always been the point of budget discussions. Not to pick three things or pick three projects or three ridings but to look as a whole of territory, what areas, what topics, what services do we need to enhance.

If there's policy matters that aren't funding related, then take those back to the relevant Ministers and have them look at it. There's been all sorts of reviews happening in the last two years. That takes time. But a lot of that work is happening. It's underway. It's being funded by the budget that's before the House right now.

I've already said my thanks, Mr. Speaker, to my colleagues on the other side. Again, it's difficult sometimes to hear the comments that are negative about the budget but they're always beneficial in the long term. Officials are listening. We are all listening. And I'm grateful for this opportunity. I'm grateful for the dialogues that we've had.

Mr. Speaker, I remain committed to consensus government, and I remain committed to not picking projects or picking -- picking one thing at a time. It's continuing this dialogue as we have been for the remainder of the 19th Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, government House leader. To the principle of the bill. Minister responsible for Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think if any one of us designed this budget, it would not look the way it looks. I have things that I would like to see in here that aren't in here, and the same goes for every single Member. None of us gets everything we want. And that is consensus government. We hope we end up with something that is suited for all of us to the best -- to the best of our abilities. And this is a budget that we put together to the best of our abilities given our -- our priorities and our limitations.

To the Members who are, you know, wishing to see this budget fail, who are voting against this budget, I'd like to remind them that the alternative is that starting tomorrow, no one's getting paid. You know, I'm concerned about students going to school. Despite what some people might say, I am concerned about our student outcomes. I want schools to be opened. I want teachers to continue to be paid. I want the lights to be on at schools. You know, I want those power bills to be paid.

There was lots of talk about small communities. And when you arrive here in Yellowknife, even coming from Hay River, you know, this looks like the streets are paved with gold. But, you know, we all know that that's not the reality. There's more people here. So yes, there's more money here obviously. But there are supports going to small communities as well, and I'm going to speak about my department's.

So at the Department of Justice, this -- this budget is proposing nearly half a million for new RCMP positions in the Tlicho region. You know, I would hope that Members would support that. I've heard it from the Tlicho leadership directly on numerous occasions that they want that increase. And so we've worked with the RCMP, and we're providing that increase. We have additional money for positions in Tuktoyaktuk because there's a need there, and we want to support that community.

And there are some territorial resources which I've heard, you know, so much about today that people don't appreciate. Well, the territorial resources in question here are the RCMP internet exploitation unit. They stop human trafficking. They stop -- they help stop our children from getting on planes and going down south and becoming, you know, part of -- part of something I don't even want to talk about. You know, it talks -- this -- this unit helps everyone in the territory. Those are the kind of centralized funds that we are spending.

The money that is in this budget is being used to decentralize positions. There's positions in Yellowknife that we are sending out to regional centres. This money has budget for -- this budget has money for positions that were decentralized by the Department of ECE last year. So it's ongoing funding.

This money -- this budget has money for Heritage centres which are primarily outside of Yellowknife. And I know they can use it. I have a Heritage centre in my community. I know they could use it. They haven't seen an increase in many, many, many years. And that is going to benefit communities outside of Yellowknife.

And as an MLA, I will say that I share the thoughts of all the other Members who are happy to see this increase in housing funding. You know, I have constituents who apply for grants to have their homes fixed. You know, you might need a roof. You might need a new roof for $60,000. And you are working full time, and you're taking care of a couple kids, and you just can't afford it. And I've seen those people get denied because there's no money left in the pot. Now we have money left in the pot. That's a real impact on our constituents, you know, and I'm happy to support that as well.

Mr. Speaker, is this budget perfect? Of course not. No budget is ever perfect. But I think that we need to realize that we didn't come into this Assembly to make 50 million, a hundred million, $150 million worth of cuts the way that we generally see coming into an Assembly.

We made our way through a pandemic without making those types of cuts. We made sure that we kept money in the budget and we kept people employed.

So maybe everyone isn't getting everything they want today, but that doesn't mean that there are not significant benefits to this for the MLAs and for the people of the territory.

So along with my Cabinet colleagues, I'll be supporting this. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. To the principle of the bill. Member -- Minister -- Minister of ECE.