Thank you, madam chair. I am going to try and stay rational in this discussion but I am frankly, disappointed at the tone of it by some people who have been in this company a long time. You know. some members are saying slow down, but balance the budget, do not make change, but balance the budget. do not transfer PYs, do not do this, do not do that, but balance the budget.
You know, I have not heard one single alternative in the time I have sat in this House in twelve months from anybody besides the program we have brought forward. So I am concerned about that. I am particularly concerned, particularly concerned, by the fact that my communities I represent and the region that I represent, clearly wants community empowerment. Baffin region wants community empowerment and community empowerment is the ability for people to make their won decisions, their own choices, based upon the funding we have got available to us.
There are too many levels of government and there always has been too many levels of government, this will reduce a significant level of government. I heard some members, and they have left the House, talk about micro-management, I wonder whether they want to be politicians or they want to be bureaucrats, they have to make up their mind. My vision of a politician is a politician that is involved in public policy, that is developing policy for the betterment of people. It is not somebody who deals at a micro-management level with how are we going to get the plumber - for heaven sakes, I would hope that we are past that in the nineties.
Somebody talks about the risks. Everything we do is risky right now. We have stepped up to the plate, we have brought forward some significant changes, we have had to make to this government to make it smaller, because we had no alternative. let me remind you all, we had no alternative. We may not have done it in a manner that satisfied everybody, we may not have done it in a manner that satisfied many, but we have had to do it to balance the budget, to make sure that the money is there and moves to the community as quickly as possible.
It reminds me of the scenario when I remember years ago trying to determine where should I give my twenty dollars a month, should I give it to Oxfam, should I give it to Save the Children et cetera, and I determined that I was going to give it to those where the administrative costs were the least.
And we have got a government that spends $455 million dollars on administering programs to the people that we are supposed to represent and if we continue to administer programs at that level there will be less money for the people at the community level. it is insulting, and I use this deliberately, insulting, when I hear my friends Mr. Picco and Mr. Ootes imply, rightly or wrongly, imply the people are not ready for it. My people are ready for community empowerment, they should be entitled to that option. Block funding has been provided to Yellowknife. It has been provided to Hay River. It has been provided to Fort Smith. I want the same options provided to my community, and the communities that I represent. I heard this argument in 1970, as a local government development officer, when Yellowknife, and the bureaucracy said, we cannot transfer settlement councils over to the people. I heard that story. I am hearing it again today, and frankly I am dismayed. People have to be given the opportunity to make the decisions for themselves, to ensure that the decisions they make are reflective of their needs, not some bureaucracy or politicians, for that matter, who sit in this mausoleum, while our people are out there suffering. People are on suicide, people are looking for jobs, etcetera, it is insulting to say that these people should not be allowed...fully elected people by the way, mayors, they should not be allowed to make the kind of decisions that they are prepared to make. Where the constituencies are prepared to make, to cross that road to community empowerment, we should get behind it, and give it the support that is required. It does not require either this legislature or the bureaucracy pontificating from above to determine what is appropriate for people in the constituencies. And if there are constituencies that do not want it, that is fine by me. But I do not want to be placed in a position by this House, of somebody from some other community determining what mine wants, and for that matter, what the region wants. It is my understanding that both in the Keewatin and the Baffin region, that the leadership, the elected mayors of these communities, support community empowerment. Support the requirement for more authority and autonomy at the community level. They want to ensure that whatever dollars are there, are in their hands to ensure that they make the right decisions, not us. The last twenty years this legislature has made all the decisions for all the people, and particularly, the last ten or fifteen. Little or no involvement up until five years ago was involved in the constituencies in the determination of capital monies and the way in which we spend them. The former Premier, Miss Nellie Cournoyea, brought the process in, allowed constituencies, municipalities to have some direct linkage to the priorities in the communities, and the way in which the money was spent. This legislature, somebody asked the question, is this a policy of this government, I do not remember it. Yes, it is a policy of this government. Let us be clear. There is, and I am not going to deny that today, there is less money available. There is no question of that. There is four times the national average in birth rate, seven times incarceration. He has heard this from me before. So there are limited dollars. We need to ensure that the money that is spent to look after the services for people moves to the people as quickly as possible, from this House where it is voted on. That is what I view as community empowerment.
The mayor of Whale Cove, the mayor of Rankin Inlet, and the other mayors in the Keewatin region are prepared to move forward on this. We need to move forward with them, in harmony with them, and provide them not only the technical support, but the moral and political one. We do not have to put obstacles in their way. We need to move them out of the way. We need to move quickly, with all due respect to my friend Mr. Ootes. We cannot continue to discuss the issue without moving forward on a twin track of trying to determine how we best do it. Yes, there are risks. As Mr. Miltenberger said, there are risks every day in this game. But there are greater risks in doing nothing, greater risks in doing nothing. We have twenty-nine months left in this constituency. We have a massive task before us, not just community empowerment, division, etcetera. This is not the time to slow down. This is the time to take some risk, put the responsibility where it belongs, in the hands of the constituencies, provide the support that is necessary, and yes, frankly, reduce the role of MLAs. Because in fact, at the end of the day, somebody asked the question, what is this government going to look like. In my eyes, I see us as public policy makers, spending the time in trying to bring policies and programs into place that affect the constituency that we represent, not bickering and arguing over a $100,000 in capital expenditures.
So Madam Chair, I want to say -- and no one is to misunderstand me, it is not intended to be derogatory to anybody -- I want my constituency to be given the same privileges as those sophisticated constituencies that have the highways, that have the school systems, that have the swimming pools, that have cost-effective housing, oil and power, et cetera. I want my constituency and the constituencies of the Keewatin to have the same opportunity. I believe community empowerment is one small way of accomplishing that and at the same time reducing the cost of doing government in the way in which we are doing it. Thank you, Madam Chair.