Thank you, Mr. Chair. I definitely think the GNWT has a role to play with addressing our intoxication downtown and the homelessness that we are experiencing. However, I want to be clear and say that not everyone that you see downtown is homeless. That is a misperception. I personally have friends who I have known all my life, who actually work for my brother. When they come into town after diamond drilling, they are downtown intoxicated, so it is not only homelessness we are dealing with.

Intoxication is not okay. I grew up in this community. In the 1960s, when I was a young child, I could walk on this street. There was no pavement and no sidewalks. I want to tell people how far we have come in the last while, but there weren't the number of homeless people out there, and people weren't afraid to walk. We left our doors open. We stopped when vehicles were in trouble. We were very community-minded.

Yellowknife has changed. Yellowknife has mostly people from the south, now. There are very few Yellowknifers here. We have lost some of that community spirit, and hopefully we can work to gain that back.

With the public intoxication, that is not okay. That is a safety issue. Children, parents, women, and men should not be afraid to walk on our streets. We have a role. We work with the federal government on the RCMP, and we need to bump that services so that the RCMP are actually doing street patrols like they did many years ago.

The other thing, too, is if we are only building shelters, I have said that many times in Yellowknife, "Build it and they will come." These people, I would say, my guesstimate from 20 years working with the homeless women, probably over 90 percent of them are actually from the smaller communities. People love their children. It is not that people want their children to just disappear. If a person is stuck in addictions or mental health, and you don't have the support, at what point does a parent say that, you know, "My family isn't safe anymore. I need to take care of my other children." It is a hard choice for a parent to close the door and say, "My child has to leave because my other children are not safe."

The other thing is, when those people are ready to heal and stop their addictions, the best support they can have is their family and community to support them, because I have seen women in the shelter who fall off. They say, "I want to clean up," and then their friends say, "Have another drink."

When I was the Housing Minister, I focused on actually building shelters outside of the community. Minister Alfred Moses concluded them, so we had three homeless shelters, one in Behchoko, Fort McPherson, and Aklavik. I think that is quite advanced with wraparound supports. If we only build in Yellowknife, we are missing the boat. We need to build in all communities, so that people have a chance when they are ready to heal, and that the wellness and supports are there for them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Mr. Chair, this is a particular area that is a high need for this government to deal with. The city and also the GNWT have been working together on this particular file through anti-poverty strategies over the years.

I have recently met with the Mayor Alty share some of my concerns, as my constituents are part of the homelessness in Yellowknife. How can we deal with those matters? She is willing to assess and help and wants to be a partner with the GNWT. Let's open those doors.

Not only that, but there have been transitional homes and safe homes as well. Just down the street from us, there is a hotel being converted into a home, but apparently the money kind of dried up, so it is kind of on hold, I believe, from my understanding. Those are areas that we need to look and re-evaluate what truly what happened there. It was going forward, and then all of a sudden, it is becoming a money issue.

Friendship centres are another one. A lot of our communities have them. I think that one of the areas that we can tackle is program delivery through the friendship centres to deal with homelessness. Like I stated earlier, bringing my constituents back to my community of Behchoko, I can only speak to that at this point. With addiction, like every community, we have challenges, but we have programs in the community. If we can expand on programs, I think that that is where we can commit as the GNWT, to expand more into program delivery into the communities.

Mr. Chair, just meeting with the Aboriginal leadership yesterday, again, they raised a lot of issues pertaining to addiction and homelessness. We need to tackle this at the forefront. Masi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had the opportunity over the last week to visit with mayors of different communities all the way from the Arctic Ocean down to the border of Alberta and Fort Smith. Community government funding not only pays for water and sewage, but it also funds programs and services that create vibrant, active, inclusive communities. How do you, as Premier, plan to address the community funding gaps, and do you feel that we are costing the GNWT more money long-term by not closing that gap and empowering our community governments? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe it was the Assembly before the last one, so probably the 17^th Assembly, when they did the research, when they did the analysis, and they found out the three categories. Every year, we have been trying to address it. I know that it was pronounced at $40 million. We have addressed, in my belief, around $10 million of that. I think that we are sitting at about $30 million.

The major deficit at this point is in capital. We are pretty close to the other areas that need to be funded. It's just the capital. We have been working diligently. Municipal and Community Affairs has been working with the community governments to try to get capital funding for their communities successfully, actually, doing that work. It has been actually pretty good.

The community governments do have a gap, $30 million approximately. The GNWT has a gap of $101 billion. In my opinion, it would be unattainable to say that we are going to, in one year, or even in the term of this Assembly, address that deficit and start giving $30 million extra a year. For one, it hasn't been addressed. We haven't set our priorities. If that is one of the priorities, then we should be looking at it, but I have a feeling that we are going to have many priorities, based on the conversations that we have had here, so we have to be working within that.

Instead of saying that we are going to deal with that in four years, what I would like to say is that we have to deal with it on an annual basis. It has to be part of the equation, and every year, we have to be willing to work towards it. At some point, and I know that people might not like to hear this, bureaucrats, we are going to have to redo that study, because if the capital funding is one of the areas, for example, water treatment centres or community arenas, et cetera, and we have water treatment plants now in every single community in the Northwest Territories, is that still on the books? Those are questions that I have.

It might not be a popular thing within the government, but I think that, at some point, we are going to have to redo that study and see where we stand. I think that we all have to work at working together to bring the resources, the financial assets for all of us, the GNWT, the community governments, and the Indigenous governments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Masi, Madam Chair. [Translation] When I was campaigning, I sat with the Mayor of Yellowknife, and she has also expressed her concern. All of the mayors of the Northwest Territories also spoke with us about this issue, about the community funding gap. Why is it that there is a gap? That is why we are here asking questions about it. In the past, when you look at how their concern about it, why are they concerned about the gap? Wellness to be saved in a small community and there is not enough funding, they can't live properly in the community, especially with water. If it's less capital funding, it's no good.

We have to re-evaluate and look at it. How can we do something different? I think that we should revisit that. Why is it there is less funding for that? I know that we can always meet with the mayor, and we can also express our concern. I know that we can't always fix everything, but we can fix some things to help the people. It seems like we are doing a little bit here and there, and we can't seem to get ahead. I think that we should get together, try to resolve this issue, and move ahead. We need capital funding if we are to do any big projects. That is what I think. Thank you. [Translation ends]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Communities are extremely important, and I think that we have to have a dialogue with the communities, especially the funding, if there is a shortfall. Obviously, there is, because the report that I looked at last night showed that there are shortfalls. I think that we have to, like other people have answered, evaluate it and set priorities. Part of those priorities have to be done around this table.

It is really important that we keep the channels of dialogue and an open mind and listen to some of the concerns of the community governments, because some of those community governments don't have a lot of things that a lot of other places have. We have to be open to ensure, like I said at the beginning, that the wealth has to be shared. I feel very strongly about strong communities, strong regional centres, and ensuring that the wealth is shared. Thank you so much.

Thank you. This is a concern of mine, and I have already stated in my first speech in this House this Assembly that this community government infrastructure funding gap needs to be addressed in a significant way during the life of this Assembly. The question was asked: is it costing the GNWT money? Well, it is in Hay River.

In Hay River, we need to expand. We need to put roads in, put sewer lines in, put water lines in, so that we can start developing houses so that people can move to town, which they want to do. We don't have enough houses for people to live right now. Every person we bring in is going to be $30,000, $35,000 to the GNWT. Two hundred people is $6.5 million a year in transfer payments that the GNWT isn't getting, because the community can't afford to put in this additional infrastructure. This money isn't even for new infrastructure; this is for placement infrastructure.

Ms. Cochrane said that, when she was growing up in Yellowknife, they had gravel roads. I live in Old Town in Hay River. We still have gravel roads. We are never going to get paved roads at this rate. This is the case of the GNWT prioritizing its infrastructure needs over community infrastructure needs. Maybe we don't address the gap in its entirety, but maybe the GNWT pulls back and says, "Okay, communities, we recognize your value and your worth and the fact that you need this money in order to grow and grow the economy and lower the cost of living, and so we are going to support you." If we can get this money in Hay River, and we can get this new expansion, there are going to be places to live, which means the cost of rent is going to go down, people are going to be able to afford not just heat but heat and power, afford some groceries. This is a big issue, and it needs to get dealt with, so I want to thank the Member for bringing it up, and it's going to be one of my priorities going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Once elected as Premier, will you lobby to ensure the Mackenzie Valley Highway connects all the way down the valley, from Inuvik to Wrigley? Because one of these days I would like to be able to drive from Tsiigehtchic to Yellowknife and without having to go through the Yukon and BC. Within my lifetime, I would like to see this. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am in favour of all highways and roads. I think that highways and roads build prosperity and economic growth. I am not only in favour of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, but I am also in favour of the road through the park, the Garden River Road, so that we have access also in Fort Smith for the FireSmart Program. There is no other way out if anything ever happened there, and we have a lot of trees and a lot of things that happen there. You know, if we ever had to evacuate that community, we do not have anywhere else to go. All roads and especially the Mackenzie Valley Highway are extremely important to the Northwest Territories. It's infrastructure. Any roads anywhere are vital infrastructure not only for connections but for families to connect, for businesses to thrive, and for people to be able to come in to visit us as tourists. Thank you so much.

Thank you. The role of the Premier is to -- sorry, one second. It has been a long day. I am a little sleepy. The Premier's job is to lobby the federal government. The Premier's job is to build relationships with other governments. However, it is not the Premier's prerogative to set the priorities of the government, so, unfortunately, if this Assembly doesn't choose the Mackenzie Valley Highway as its priority, I don't think it would be appropriate for the Premier to go and lobby Ottawa.

That being said, I think that the Mackenzie Valley Highway is probably the best investment that this territory could make. You know, you see what is going on in Tuktoyaktuk with the tourism. Imagine if, instead of going up and down the Dempster, they come through the territory. Imagine the economic growth that would bring to the communities, thousands and thousands of tourists. Imagine the lowering of the cost of living. I think that it is the sort of grand project that we need in order to really fulfill the promise of the territory, and so I hope that if I am Premier I have the ability to lobby for it because it would be one of the priorities of the Assembly. Thank you.

Masi, Madam Chair. [Translation] Regarding the Mackenzie Valley Highway, as MLAs, once we create our mandate and this is included, we will approach the federal government for funding. They already have this mandate to expand the road, just the same as the Whati all-weather road. We have been advocating for this for many years, and now it's in place. Now we see a lot of our young people employed by this road. We know what kind of prosperity it could bring to the community, and these kinds of jobs are expanding. The MLAs, once we all agree that this will be one of our mandates, we will push for this issue. Once we start pushing this issue, it may become a reality one day if we all support each other. Sometimes pushing this kind of issue is very difficult, and some of us are here only for four years.

Once we put this as one of the mandates, and sometimes the executive and Premier changes, but once they are in place, I am sure that we could put this as a priority. We all know that, once an all-weather road is in place, a lot of the expenses will go down and there will be employment for our young people, so I think it's very important that we push this. Just like we talked about yesterday, I am sure they all think the same as all of us, all 19 of us. We can all push this so, once our Premier is in place, he will push the federal government. That is part of the Premier's job. Masi [End of translation].

Thank you, Madam Chair. Once the Premier is in place, she can push things. I agree that highways are important. The Mackenzie Valley Highway is actually one of the examples I gave in my speech. The Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Taltson, and the Slave geological road I think are major infrastructure projects, but I also said today: hold us to account by what we promise you. In my speech, I actually promised that I would be doing regional economic development plans with Indigenous governments.

I do know that, MLAs, we have a right to and we do make our own priorities, but I have also stated today that we have to stop our colonialist kind of ideal and saying that we know best, we are the answer. We have been talking over and over about building that relationship, so, if we come in with the perception and say, "This is our priority," or, "This is not our priority," we are back-stepping. We will make our priorities in this Assembly. That may be one of them, but my commitment is that, if I am elected as your Premier, then I will meet with the Indigenous governments and work with them to make regional economic development strategies and then, based on that, work with them to lobby the federal government to actually pay for that. Thank you, Madam Chair.