Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Members of the Legislature are aware that about 65 percent of our overall budget goes to the social envelope, that is to justice, health and social services, education and I believe housing.
It is true that this government is finding itself increasingly unable to provide programs and services as it used to, to the people of the Northwest Territories. This is no different from other governments across this country. It has been said that even provinces that are well financed with balanced budgets, will in a few years be unable, even with cost share commitment from the federal government, to meet the health cost demands of their citizens. This is the nature of health as we believe it will be in the future.
It brings a scenario to myself and Members of Cabinet and all Members of the Legislature; what type of population are we going to turn over to aboriginal governments when they are set up and are ready to be implemented? It is my view that we have an obligation to address the realities that we have been forced to confront in our communities today.
Should aboriginal governments be set up, no amount of money will be sufficient to address the needs of the community at the regional level, even in two years. As a government, we have been working for years now, addressing the needs of our communities with drug and alcohol programming, family violence, social workers and nurses. It is our view that unless we address it up front and we find some way to work in partnership with the chiefs, Metis leaders, Inuvialuit leaders, community leaders, the costs of providing services to our people is going to go up from 65 percent of our overall budget and keep creeping up until it consumes the entire budget.
This is not an honest way to run government. It is not an honest way to approach self-government. We have an obligation to address it, to articulate it and to find some way to prepare for the transition. This is the reality of where we are today. It is not all doom and gloom. The fact is that in many of our communities, in almost all of our communities, we have very strong leaders. We have committed frontline workers. We have whole families that are committed to working towards a better, more balanced lifestyle. People who have dealt with drug and alcohol problems are on their way to becoming healthy, recovering people. Good portions of our people in the communities are already there.
In many ways, we are in a better position than we were in the 70's and 80's, but the fact is our people need more jobs. We need to position ourselves so that we become confident, strong and capable enough to not only be defensive, but to take the offensive and say yes.
We see that the world needs more natural gas and oil. We will take the initiative and propose to build, own, and manage a pipeline.
The signal is there. Now we need to build the confidence and give them the support so they can do that. There are whole ranges of things we can do, if only we make the commitment to articulate those things and work together. It is too time consuming and disillusioning for our community leaders to see our leaders fighting and bickering, paranoid of one another and disowning and discrediting one another on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.
Just for once, perhaps we could see the chiefs, the Metis leaders and the Inuvialuit work with the Members of the Legislative Assembly, the Ministers, in getting two or three good things done for our communities.
For too many years now, and I have heard it for too many years in the Sahtu myself, that it is the government's fault. The government did this to us, they did that to us and if only the government was not there, life would be better.
It is my view that even if the Government of the Northwest Territories was not there, people would still be smoking as much as they do. They would still be inflicting the harm, hurt and damage on themselves and each other as they do now.
It is not the government that makes people do that. Perhaps there is some responsibility for it but some time or another people have to accept that no one can make life better unless each individual decides that the way we live now is not acceptable. That is what we are going to try to do.
First, quit denying that life is good and that life could be better if only the Government of the Northwest Territories and the federal government were gone. That life would be a utopia life, when and if we get self-government off the ground.
That is my view. I think that this renewed vision and commitment that we speak about is simply that. We see a better future, a better life for everybody and there is a way to do it. But first, as many of our communities and regions do, we are going to spend a lot of time talking and disagreeing. At the end of the day, when the decision is made, we all have to support it. We have too many detractors, too many people who see only the negative side or are absolutely convinced that nothing will go wrong but that everything will go wrong.
This is what we are talking about and I think that all Members agree that it is a matter of choice and a matter of commitment to make people face up to those choices. Thank you.