Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's with considerable regret that I stand here to speak against the motion. I will take some time to qualify my position here. The moves that the Northwest Territories should make, Mr. Speaker -- and when I say Northwest Territories I include not only this government here, but our partners among the First Nations and in the communities -- we have to set some new thresholds, some new targets, some new bars for ourselves and for our partners at the federal level, too, if we are indeed going to achieve something in the way of a resource management regime that will mean something for us as a real part of Canada, Mr. Speaker. Because right now and with the information and the processes and the track records that we have on our own account and in our negotiations and our attempts to get this kind of deal, we have failed over and over and over again, year after year after year, deal after deal after deal. We're not getting anywhere. In terms of expressing where I believe we should be going and the kind of ambitions and desires that we should be setting out, this motion does not go far enough. So I'd like to qualify that. I am not opposed to the words that are in here, but if this Assembly is going to do something proactive and make a difference then we're not going far enough in this motion.
Mr. Speaker, earlier today the Regular Members' side of the Assembly spoke, I thought, very well, very convincingly, of so many aspects of the state of our territory and its linkage with resources and the lack of a resource deal. Why are we stuck in so many different holding patterns, if you will? Why are things not progressing as rapidly or as positively as we would like? So many of the causes come back to our inability to make the kinds of decisions, to have the kinds of resources at our disposal that we would like to have if we're going to grow this territory. In the meantime, it's worth repeating, last year alone, $200 million went into Ottawa's coffers, $8 million went into ours. These are from the resource royalties in one year alone. Do the math, it just doesn't figure.
Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues -- I think it was Ms. Lee -- spoke to the social consequences of what's going on in this NWT right now and we have on one side to be thankful for a boom economy generated by the diamond play in the North Slave here and by the oil and gas resources that are coming out of the far western part of the territory. We see new trucks and booming retail sales all over the place as at least some of the signals of a very healthy and vibrant economy. But there are consequences. We have statistically looked at the consequences, Mr. Speaker, rising statistics of abuse, of violence, of domestic strife. Mrs. Groenewegen yesterday related a very disturbing story in her community of youth. We're not talking about older teenagers here, she was talking about kids under 14 and 15 who are really in serious trouble and our system, our infrastructure, our rules are ineffective when it comes to dealing with this. Yet we have all this wealth and all these resources going swirling around us, but we can't do anything at that level. This is a remarkably disappointing, disturbing and demoralizing, really, state of affairs for a government because these are the things that are in our control. Yet, let's look back again at the flow of the resources out of here.
Last year, the value of the resource was some $2.2 billion, twice the value of the expenditures that this government puts into all our programs flowing out of here in one year. It's a remarkable comparison of where the wealth is going and where the need is, and we're not doing much of a job of it. Housing, literacy, justice issues; there are many families out there, Mr. Speaker, that are challenged by these things daily and now with this new regime or this new economy where it seems money and influence from drugs, from alcohol and from huge expectations of what people can achieve we're unable to deliver.
Mr. Speaker, on the social side, it is more and more frustrating to stand here, work here as an MLA knowing and watching the shareholders of these corporations around the world benefiting from our resources. That is their privilege and their right. They took a risk and I
compliment those companies on some amazing returns. But in the meantime, they get the profits, Ottawa gets the royalties, we get the heavy sledding. We have to do the heavy lifting on the social side. We don't have the tools or the resources to do it. Mr. Speaker, I've talked about the frustration of being in here and not being able to grow this territory. We're going backwards. This year and next, our Finance Minister has told us that we have to pare $20 million a year off our budget. For four years running now, this Assembly and our committees and our bureaucracies have dealt with doom and gloom, debt and deficit every year because we haven't had the ability to see where the money is going to be coming from. Other than that, it's never going to be enough. But then every year for the last four years, somehow, Mr. Speaker, a truckload of money has driven up to the back door just at the last minute, we're saved, feel really good for a little while, we get some quick relief, but that dull ache from long-term pain comes back that says my gosh, we're still in a mess, we're still in debt, we're still in deficit next year and the year after that and the year after that. It's not a way to govern, Mr. Speaker, not knowing where we're going to go and what sense of control we're going to have over our affairs. To the motion that says we're looking for ways to secure resource revenue sharing, devolution arrangements, this motion does not go far enough.
I ran for this job. I believe I was elected to help grow this territory, to help expand and stretch and find new horizons. But I find, Mr. Speaker, that more and more of my attention and my decisions are going into, well, how much less can we do? How much do we have to cut back or hold off or defer or change our plans? I find that we are more and more just managing the essential services here and we're not able to move this economy; as exciting as I believe it is, we are in a state of suspension because we don't have the hope or the tools to see that we can make a change in our own future.
Mr. Speaker, I try to look at this, I guess, from the point of view of our partners, but yet our political and economic master is in Ottawa. The Premier told us earlier today that, indeed, on the devolution side, we're dealing with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. They have the mandate there. But on the resource revenue side we're dealing with the Department of Finance. The gaps here, the chasms, the grand canyons of difference between these two departments is chronic, it's legendary. I just don't know how we're going to see that these two agencies will really be able to come together and work on our behalf. The Premier has expressed optimism. It's his job to do that. But I would relate back to what I said is the track record of performance and progressive action on these things. I can't share that sense of optimism.
I guess I can't blame, in a sense, the folks at Finance Canada. You know, they're looking at a money stream that's growing by leaps and bounds from the Northwest Territories and maybe they're saying to themselves, well, after years and years and years of putting money into the Northwest Territories we finally have a chance here to see some payback. Why should they give any more of that money away than they absolutely need to? Why should they go out of their way to help us satisfy some of our desires when there's all this cash coming into an already cash-rich Ottawa? It's not their job, I guess, to help grow the country.
From the point of view of DIAND, you know, earlier today I talked about the mantle of colonialism and I don't know how else to explain it, Mr. Speaker. A group of mandarins, bureaucrats 4,000 kilometres from here who have an act that's, oh, I don't know, somebody was saying earlier today that the NWT Act first came about in 1870. So it's something that has been around for a long, long, long time. It's outdated, long past the time that Canada should be looking at its North not as a continuance of the colonial attitude, the "we know best" attitude, there aren't enough of you up there, you guys don't know what you're doing, you're never going to get your acts together, we'll have to look after these things for you. That has to change. Somehow Canada has to say, yes, we're going to give these people, northerners, aboriginal people, their say, their due. We're going to let them go to work, and on a new set of terms with Canada make their way in this confederation. Canada agreed to do that five years ago with Nunavut, an extraordinary experiment in democracy and nation building and a belief in people. They're having their tough times over in Nunavut, but they've got something to believe in, that they've asked for, and that they are going to make a difference with. I think we should be asking the same, and that is why this motion does not go far enough.
Mr. Speaker, I guess I would conclude this statement with an appeal to Members in this House to truly consider if we are going to take this opportunity to send a message out, is this the message that we should be sending. Should we not be sending one that says live up to the deal that everybody signed on March 18th of this year? Regrettably we've heard from the Premier that if it's not already abandoned it's not worth pursuing, because whatever circumstances have changed. The advent of the pipeline is something that we've all watched and anticipated with great expectations for coming on 30 years now. It's virtually at our doorstep, but in the absence of certainty, confidence in what it's going to mean for us, how we are going to be able to manage it. Is this the deal that we should be standing up and saying no, not until we know for sure this time what it means for northerners? That's going to an extreme length I know in some peoples' minds, but at what point are we going to allow ourselves to go in such short-term thinking, so disconnected, so unorganized in our thinking and our planning and our belief that we are just going to continue to allow this to happen for years and years and years to come? We will never be able to realize what I think can and should be our true place in Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.