Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, honourable colleagues, this is the second budget of the 13th Assembly. The first one we had no pressures from the

previous round of budget implications. Many of us were new to this level of government. I believe that we were aware of the road that lies ahead. I remember being told by the people in my community of Inuvik that they did not envy the position that we were in. I also heard that this was not a good time to be in government. But for better or worse we spin ahead down the path of budget reductions and we have now travelled this road of reductions for a year. We have heard the concerns from the people and the organizations as they have tried and continue to try and deal with the reductions that have been delivered to them by this 13th Assembly.

And it is with these concerns we enter into a second year of reductions with the message of the pain being felt back in our home communities. As we took part in the business plans trying to address their concerns and fears, and unlike other assemblies, as Ordinary Members we have had the opportunity to try to influence the direction of this government with those concerns and fears from our communities.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard around this table, this House, comments like those made by Mr. Seamus Henry, where he states, I quote from the unedited Hansard on Wednesday, January 29th, in reference to the City of Yellowknife..."the city has taken a blow and is limping a bit, and we are down but certainly not out". Mr. Speaker, I would like to state that Inuvik has taken a large amount of reductions. And we have no new projects on the horizon that will help us rebound from the reductions. Mr. Speaker, there are communities that will receive a positive benefit from having large scale productions on their horizon. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I feel that Inuvik is somewhat out on a limb here to be able to access some of the positive influences there. I hope that we will though, to some degree.

Mr. Speaker it can be said that Inuvik cannot even limp. Instead, we need a prosthesis from the government, possibly from the knee down. Maybe, Mr. Speaker, the government could provide my community with a cart so we could at least get to the street and beg from those who have.

Mr Speaker, my community and the region have felt that for years. Mr. Speaker, I have concern with the message this government sends out. I relate this to raising children because I have four of my own, Mr. Speaker. I think that they learn more by watching than what they do, by what I say to them. Mr. Speaker, I say this because the people have heard what this Legislature has said, and watched what we have done. And although we have tried to deal with our community issues and concerns in committees we still find there are negative impacts being felt in our communities. It is these negative impacts that we seem to focus on.

Mr. Speaker, for over a year now I have listened in committee, Caucus and in this Assembly about what we are trying to do as a government with the task that lie before us of balancing a budget with the forced growth issues that lie before us, a population that is the fastest growing in Canada. With the problems we have socially with alcoholism and drug abuse. With the low levels of education amongst the native people.

Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to see people that you know in your community go unemployed. It is not easy to sit in a meeting and be there as the Board of Delta House is told that their funding will be cut. I know there are times when I would rather not be part of it at all, but I got into this because I was concerned just exactly how those reductions would happen.

I got involved because of my children and my concern for their education and health, and them having the ability to take part in a healthy environment. I wanted to make sure that the community of Inuvik, at the end of the day when reductions were done would still be a viable community to live in, that would have an education system that will allow them to go wherever and be equal to those who have been educated in other places. I want them to have the ability when they become ill, to be able to get access to health care without having to wait long periods of time for medication or treatment.

I said in an interview not long ago that I do not have to defend what this government has put forward as reductions. I do not believe that it is my job to defend the decisions that are made. Although I have had an opportunity to address the concerns of my constituents in Inuvik, there are still times when I have to mention about it a second time, a third time. I know things are not easy to change in the government system. I have been made aware of that in my slightly over a year of being elected here in the 13th Assembly.

I know the people of Inuvik are healthy. We are able to deal with the problems that come our way. We have done so for some time. We have managed to work our way out of when the oil companies started to leave the Delta. We lost a lot of jobs then. We dealt with the issue of the armed forces leaving the community of Inuvik. We have managed to seem to go through that and I am sure, Mr. Speaker that the community of Inuvik will rise above all the controversies that are happening and deal with the reductions being felt, when it comes to budget reductions being brought forward by this government I feel that we can do this, but a lot of people and folks in Inuvik are very concerned about what lies ahead. The government a few years ago started selling staff housing. Offered it to employees and other people of the community. And the people took them up and bought those houses. A few years later, a number of those people now have pink slips. The community of Inuvik, the taxed based municipality, the town council is now finding difficulty in collecting some of the taxes because people do not have jobs to pay the taxes.

I think, Mr. Speaker, we need to start, as a government, focusing on what can be done and instead of what cannot be done. I need to be able to go back to my community some time soon and tell them there is some light at the end of this tunnel. That there is some opportunity there that we can grasp on to. To try and deal with some of the reductions that have come through our community.

Mr. Speaker, I have been down and spent a lot of my time in Yellowknife since being elected and I have seen, as has been commented before, the growth that is happening around the City of Yellowknife, especially when it is mentioned as the third fastest growing city. I see that when I walk around Yellowknife or go to a restaurant to eat a meal. My Speaker, in my community of Inuvik, when you go down to a restaurant you do not find it full of people. You do not have to make reservations. Some restaurants have had to lay off their staff and run it as just an owner, to keep the doors open. I am sure a lot of those business people do not like going to the government for hand outs, to try and stay open but they are finding they have to do that.

So I would say and urge this government to start focusing on what can be done. How can we help the people in the communities hardest hit by the reductions in the budget? I say this because I feel Inuvik for two years has taken a large amount of reductions. I am being reminded by community members, by the council, and I think I have the support of people in Inuvik when I say that Inuvik wants to be treated fairly and does not support the idea of more reductions continuing on. They accept the fact that reductions are coming. The concern is, are they fair and just?

Inuvik has never really had to rely heavily on government, but we are finding, over the years, we have had to turn more and more to government and the community is not all that good at going out with its hands open and saying, can you give me?

We have been disappointed by a number of things that past governments have done and were disappointed, no doubt, by some of the decisions made by this government. When I go back home to my community and I talk to the people, if they address their concerns, some of them I say, well, where do we get the funds from? We have to deal with the budget, we have to be able to make sure that our future generations have an opportunity to be successful, instead of paying a big debt.

I have compared coming to Yellowknife and going to committee and on the political level we seem to have an understanding of where we need to go and how to do it. I have compared that to a river that flows down, and on a nice day, as the sun shines, the top is clear, calm, and you get a nice reflection and you feel comforted. You have this peaceful feeling. Like I say, at times I feel comforted that we all seem to politically agree on the same thing. But when you get past the surface, Mr. Speaker, underneath there is a lot of water before you get to the bottom of the river.

I have compared the dropping of a stone in a river. Not always when you drop that stone, does it land straight down from where you dropped it. It sometimes lands further down river, and I compare that to some of the decisions we have made, we have agreed on some initiatives, and in principle we have agreed to some of the necessary areas of reduction. I found at times, when I get to my community, that what I thought I agreed to and what happened seemed to be almost two separate things. I know, and I have heard it before stated to me, that although we seem to be changing the way things happen, there is still a lot in the system that does not want to change. I would say that we need to continue to work and we need to apply pressure where it is needed.

If there are some dams there that slow the process down, we must take those out. If there is a river flowing too fast that we need to slow down, maybe we need to put up a barrier. I am glad to see that this government has changed its mind over the last year on a number of initiatives that has given the people in my community a chance to breath a little, to look at the long-term impacts of some of the decisions that we have made.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that, as I came in here a year ago and looked at the first budget of the 13th Assembly, I agreed with many around the table then that we need to deal with our budget issues. We need to balance the budget. That is only proper, and I think we are halfway there. If we can come through this year and do it in a more compassionate and caring way, that the people of the territories agree that this needed to be done, then we will have succeeded if our goals are achieved. I can go back to my community at the end of the day and say, now we can start dealing with what needs to be dealt with. We can look at jobs, we can look at employment. We need to start focusing on that.

Because, Mr. Speaker, when people are unemployed and cannot find work, there is a lot of time they sit around and dwell on what could be or what would have been, and I think it is those times that cause a lot of people to turn towards other things that could be self destructive in a lot of ways. If people are busy at work, they are happier people. I think that is what we need to start doing as a government, is to focus on what can be done, not what cannot be done. I would hope that this government would start looking at the initiatives, and I would hope that this government would look at the initiatives in terms of the communities that have taken the brunt of these reductions.

I think the people of Inuvik realize that, as a regional centre we would take more of the hits. We are bigger. We cannot take health care workers out of our health station that have only two employees. We have done that in our community. I think the boards have made wise decisions in a lot of areas and some I will question, but we all cannot be right all of the time. I will give that benefit of the doubt as well to the Finance Minister. He is not always right, although we have heard around the table and some jokes go around about, what is the difference between Todd and God. I know the difference and I think many of us do. He is a man like many folks. He is human and he is given direction by humans, so he is bound to make mistakes, but I hope that is when we, as an Assembly, get together to pick him up and point him in the right direction.

-- Laughter