Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to make a reply to the Budget Address delivered by our honourable Minister of Finance. I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance and the Cabinet for the work they have done in the last year. There have been difficult times within our government and within the federal system. There has been a lot of difficulty in juggling and balancing this government's financing.

Timing for introducing budgets is always difficult and here in the north, it is no different. Mr. Pollard introduced this government's budget just seven days prior to the introduction of the federal budget. Some of us watched it on TV yesterday afternoon and last night we got copies of the speech. So, there has been very little time to try to analyze the budget and make comparisons. It is difficult to provide intelligent comments on the federal budget and its impact on our territorial budget.

All I know and can deduce from the package introduced by our Minister of Finance is that here, in the Northwest Territories, we seem to be, and are, steadily going into the hole, from an accumulated surplus of $56 million in 1992-93 to an estimated accumulated deficit of $38 million in 1995-96. Mr. Speaker, this is a negative turnaround of about $95 million. After this projected deficit, there will be another $58 million, which the Minister of Finance has stated will be the projected cuts for the 1996-97 fiscal year. If you add all this up, we have a whopping $150 million turnaround -- all negative, in terms of straight cash dollars -- in the last five years.

However, Mr. Speaker, given this negativity, this government has done some positive things and I have to congratulate them for pursuing many of the initiatives and changes they have made in government. They've adopted many of the recommendations made by our standing and special committees. Their motto has been to try to do more with less and I guess the jury is still out on whether or not we are doing more with less. The Standing Committee on Finance has been diligent in pushing this government to ensure that effective monitoring and evaluation systems are in place to measure all government programs and expenditures.

Mr. Speaker, one of the recommendations which came out loud and clear at the recent Western Constitutional Steering Committee Conference was that governments should devolve as much responsibility and authority to the community level as possible. The conference supported four levels of government: community, aboriginal, regional and central. In this regard, this government has taken several initiatives to strengthen the roles of communities and the regions.

The community transfer initiative has been under way, although not as quickly and as much as we had wanted to get transferred. But, the ones that are in place seem to be working. The government has devolved departments, or sections of departments, to regional levels and those seem to be in place and people employed. However, there is still a lot to do. We seem to have just touched the surface. With reshaping northern government, some of the initial initiatives that were planned for have been done, but I believe there is still a lot more to do. For the regions and especially the communities, I think more is better.

Most of the departments right now are being reviewed and reorganized. I believe this should give the Ministers opportunities to make more appropriate changes to devolve responsibilities to communities and regional levels. In this regard, the Minister of Economic Development has taken a lead role, and I believe his initiatives should be followed by other Ministers.

I would also be remiss if I didn't congratulate this government for providing funding for some new programs and for enhancing some existing ones. The $1 million increase to Arctic College programs and the $3.8 million increase to student financial assistance are going to help our people get further education and, hopefully, we will have jobs for them once they graduate. We've also increased funds for services to the aged and disabled; coordinated home care programs that are going to be put into place in several communities.

The community wellness projects are starting up. These are major initiatives and are pulling communities together to work on healing themselves. There is also increased funding for business development, which I mentioned yesterday. We have to try to get more, and not bigger chunks of money, but smaller chunks of money, to more people. This will create jobs, enhance small businesses and help develop them. In the area of renewable resources, there are a lot of resources out there that we have to push to enhance and develop. Finally, we have $1 million for a new Metis health benefit insurance program. Mahsi cho.

There is still a need to finance these initiatives and this is where we still have a problem. A big area of concern is the inability of this government to generate lots of new revenue. We are always continually rehashing and increasing the fees and services that we provide to the public. These fees and services impact the business community and our middle-class residents the most.

I also understand, based on recent CBC radio interviews with the honourable Minister of Finance, that he is considering increasing personal income tax rates. In this period of economic recovery and growth, I would hope that our Minister takes the lead demonstrated by the federal government yesterday and does not increase our income tax rates in the upcoming year.

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot more comments on particular issues raised by the Minister in his statement, but I will pursue these when we deal with the budget on a department-by-department basis. Mahsi cho.

---Applause