Thank you. I'm feeling I'm in election forum again, Mr. Chair. But I agree with my colleagues. Like, I think this is a system line problem, and it's going to take all levels of governments of the Northwest Territories to solve, and it's going to take input from all members. And I do thank the Member for giving us something to think about at the start. We have an opportunity all to collaborate on a fiscal strategy that will allow us to consider options likes that. I do think we need to take a look at things like the tax system to look at how incomes are taxed in the Northwest Territories. I don't think that we need to rely on own source revenues as much as we need to rely on population growth to drive new revenues which will allow us to take the edge off -- you know, off -- the edge off people by lowering fees and services across the board. That's kind of where I take this. It's about taking the pressure off northerners. And, fundamentally, every northerner needs a raise. We can't keep up with just -- we can't build all the projects that we need to build and fundamentally transform or environment. What we can do is pay people more like we used to. The northern advantage has been eroded over the years, and we need to bring it back. And that means we need some -- we need to give more as the government back to the public service and support private sector giving similar wage increases to their staff as well because, fundamentally, if we fix that problem, we're going to encourage more people to live here, restore that opportunity and that promise of northern opportunity that brought my family here way back in the '70s and '80s. And that's -- so that's how I see things moving forward, right, like, we can talk about all the things we can do. We can build Taltson. We can build the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We can repeal the carbon tax, which I'm committed to doing using the federal system which will get us those exemptions in place. And we can build -- put in an affordability and policy lens into Cabinet decision-making as well, so affordability is always front and center with what we do as a government. But fundamentally the thing Northerners need right now is more money in their pocket, and I'm committed to doing that working with all of you. Thank you.
Kieron Testart on Questions by Members
On December 7th, 2023. See this statement in context.
See context to find out what was said next.