Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, colleagues. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to share with you today the priorities of the Nahendeh region and how they fit into our 18th Assembly’s priorities.
As I was working on my speech over the past three days, I started thinking of how and what I was going to present here today. When thinking about the priorities, I kept going back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow states that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one’s needs are fulfilled, the person seeks to fulfill the next one, and so on and so on. The five stages, or stage model, is divided in basic and growth needs. Every person is capable and has desire to move up the hierarchy towards a level of self-actualization. Unfortunately, process is often disrupted by failure to meet lower level needs. Life experiences, including divorce and loss of jobs, may cause an individual to fluctuate between levels of hierarchy.
The five levels are: biological and physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteemed needs, and self-actualization needs. I will not break down each point here today as I only have 15 minutes to articulate what I envision for the 18th Assembly, but I would like to encourage you to Google Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when you have the chance.
When I decided to run five months ago to become an MLA for the Nahendeh riding, I was told by a wise person to listen to the people and write things down before developing a platform. This is what my team and I did, and here is what we heard.
Our health. Investment in preventive and proactive health care, enhance and focus on collective healing in the communities for prenatal, mental health and addiction programs. Address our health facilities’ deficiencies in small communities and expand our MOUs with other provincial governments to meet the needs of our residents. I believe that we should be leaders in this country by focusing on preventive and proactive health care in the communities.
One of the avenues is to increase funding for quality physical literacy programs and active recreation programs. Yes, you’ve heard it here first. Be creative and start focusing on prevention, not treatment.
Focus on a collective healing on all people in the communities. We need enhancements to prenatal programs and care. Be creative to bring mental health and addiction programs closer to home. Do not take people away. Bring it to the people.
Investigate options with other provincial governments to access their health needs and services to help us, our people.
Our education, provide the necessary funding to provide quality early childhood education, enhance opportunities for all residents to gain skills and qualifications to contribute to their and NWT’s future. Establish a community, regional and territorial centre for learning excellence dedicated to advance student achievements.
Increase partnerships with business communities to develop entrepreneurial skills or trades skills. Early childhood programs, such as Junior Kindergarten programs and Head Start programs, are critical to our children’s well-being, and to ensure that they are given the best start in education, they need to be funded differently than the student/teacher ratio we presently use.
Trades and access programs need to be offered in communities that have Aurora College programs for students wishing to succeed to go down south. Let’s give them the success they need at home first.
We need physical literacy and education programs in schools in the Northwest Territories. Healthy mind, healthy body, makes healthy people.
Storefront to encourage community residents to continue their education. Education doesn’t stop when you finish school; it’s ongoing and we need to be able to offer that to our residents. We need to partner with business to expand students’ knowledge and opportunity for success. Support to students and teachers so teachers can teach, so they can actually teach in the classroom for the benefit of our students. That means more SNAs and mental health workers in the schools. Reduce student/teacher ratios so they are in line with Canada. We have a number of challenges in the Northwest Territories and they need to be addressed. By having higher student/teacher ratios, it does not help.
Our youth, increased community funding for youth, team social programs, develop or enhance programs that focus on self-leadership development for youth. Increase physical literacy and leadership opportunities. Emphasis on programs that engage both youth and elders together. Bridge that gap. Enhance education for mental health, addiction, physical health education, and develop programs that create opportunities for life skills education.
This is important to me and the residents of Nahendeh and the Northwest Territories. Politicians talk about how important youth are and we need to do something about it. Unfortunately, this is not the reality of past governments. We only invest $1 million in this area with a $1.6 billion budget. Shame on us. They are our future and should be treated as such. We need to increase funding by at least four or five times as much as we have in there right now.
Our homes, address housing needs that will enhance housing programs and support for youth ownership. Deal with homelessness. It is sad across the Territories. Focus on quality housing construction for sustainable infrastructure and local job opportunities. Ensure quality and safe elder housing in every community. We need to find a way to get young people into housing units with opportunity to purchase them. As you heard from some of my other colleagues today, you either make too much money or not enough to get into these homes. Shame on us.
We have youth returning from home being successful in school, listening to us and following their dream, but we do not allow them to follow their dreams in their communities because we do not have adequate housing. I’m not blaming it on the housing association, but I am blaming it on us, the government, because we have not found a way to get them in homes.
We need to help them get their feet under them. We need to develop senior complexes and homes in smaller communities so elders can stay in their community. Why do they need to move to another community? Where is the respect in that?
Our roads, enhance funding necessary to repair and maintain existing highways. Enhance year-round access to communities in the North Slave, Deh Cho and Sahtu for the benefit of residents and visitors. Enhance job creation, training opportunities, while ensuring safety on roads and by building and maintaining emergency shelters. Somebody needs to address that. We blame each other. It’s not Transportation; it’s not ITI. Well, it’s the government; we should be dealing with it. The transportation system needs to be addressed. Communities’ voices need to be heard and listened to. They cannot be told they do not need something. The roads in the regions need to be funded better for the safety of the residents and tourists alike. The ferry hours need to be increased and potentially looked at better locations to increase service and potential reduction of some operation costs. There are answers out there. We need to look at them.
As well, departments must understand and make decisions for the whole territory. Looking at the issues for potential community driver restrictions is an example. That needs to be addressed. The smaller communities don’t benefit from it.
Our economy, students who return from university and college need to be guaranteed opportunities to get a job. Encourage partnership with northern companies and First Nations to provide the necessary services and work that is required. North first. Strengthen and diversify the economy, invest in the Mackenzie Valley Highway, all-weather roads for the communities in the Nahendeh, the Sahtu and the North Slave that do not have existing roads right now.
Bring back the Hire North process. It worked. You look and talk to the people out there who took the program, they were successful. We give them the skills, it helps industry as well. We’ve heard about our communities. We’ve heard about the shortfall in funding to our communities. We need to fund our communities like we do education and health. The Department of Municipal Affairs and Community Affairs and NWTAC have developed a report and showed the shortfall, and funding has not increased in that department. It’s our communities, ladies and gentlemen. We need to address that.
Our treaties, we need clarity and certainty to move forward in the 18th Assembly. To do this we need to expand on one of the 17th Assembly’s priorities of building a strong and sustainable future. We need the Government of the Northwest Territories to truly negotiate with the outstanding Aboriginal groups so they can implement all final agreements in this, the 18th Assembly. In the Nahendeh riding we have two agreements – the Dehcho First Nation and Acho Dene Koe – and they are very close to being ratified. I believe that both parties negotiate cooperatively and in good faith. We will celebrate in the next two years the closing of their agreement and the signing.
Certainty for public servants. I believe we need to work with all our public servants to come up with creative solutions to address our difficult financial situation. I’m not just talking about the senior bureaucracy; I am talking about all civil servants. Cutting filled positions to save money isn’t necessarily the option when we are a small territory. People will leave and populations will decline. We need to remember, we are a unique part of Canada and we should be modelling innovative thinking.
You’ve heard from my other colleagues about language and high cost of living, and I will not speak of them today. I think everyone here articulated it well, and I believe the other eight will be speaking on that behalf.
In closing, we need to work together. I always felt that Members of the Legislative Assembly should be individuals who are willing to listen to the people, identify the issues, seek all the facts, and ultimately work towards solutions. In some situations it may be necessary to work harder to find alternative ways to get things done. We need to be working hard to be creative to address difficult situations. For me, it’s always about working for the people in the communities of the Northwest Territories to meet common needs and goals. Mahsi cho, koana, thank you.