Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me just start by saying that it is good to be back in the House. I would like to be one of the first ones to thank you for your four years in that seat and making sure that good orderly discussion in the House occurs. It's going to be hard to find somebody to fill that seat as comfortably as you have, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today on unemployment. In the Northwest Territories, we need to diversify the economy. The Government of the Northwest Territories is the only organization in the Northwest Territories that could help diversify economy in the Northwest Territories.
Right now we have 33 communities. Twenty-seven of them are non-tax based. Twenty-seven communities hardly have any government employees. Mr. Speaker, if you sit back and look at the big picture, what we see are regional centres having 90 percent of government employees administering a welfare state. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever where people in five communities make all the money while their tax dollars go to income support and other social programs because there is no employment in the communities. In this day and age of communications why is it policy people, analysts, are all in regional centres? Why can't we diversify the economy of the Northwest Territories so that we could say that the Northwest Territories is in every community and every community belongs to the Northwest Territories' government? We can't say that now.
I can't see why we continually go down the same path saying the economy scales say you can't put a position in there because it is just going to cost the taxpayers too many dollars. At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, it is the taxpayers' dollars that are keeping the people on welfare, not even welfare. You call it income support or employment support. What about the employment in the communities? If we don't put the jobs there, then there is no employment besides short-term employment that does not lead to long-lasting employment that a person could go to a bank with.
Mr. Speaker, this next couple of weeks I will be speaking on this issue, I will be asking appropriate Ministers why we don't diversify our economy to diversify employment in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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