Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will start my comments. I have had a chance to be in the chair for awhile and my blood pressure came down a little bit and I had something to eat.
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I feel a lot better, Mr. Chairman. Once again, I would just like to reiterate a couple of things. The first one is the obligation that Members of this Assembly have to do what we can to deliver a balanced budget to the residents of the Northwest Territories. I also wanted to talk again a bit about the formula financing arrangement that we have with Ottawa and how I see that as a key inhibitor to any success we are going to have as a territory.
Last week, the Premier will remember my Member's statement when I talked about the fact that we've been talking about trying to fix our arrangement with Ottawa for a number of years as well as the devolution process and all that comes with that. I am going to say this again, I think the common denominator -- I am a Conservative and I don't hide that -- to a lot of our difficulties here in dealing with the federal government is the Liberal government that's in Ottawa. I can't state it any more clearly than that, Mr. Chairman.
I see lately that they've agreed to give $1 million to Mr. Peterson who is in charge of negotiations on the NWT file on devolution; $1 million a year to carry on with that. The Premier has talked that we are going to have a new arrangement and everyone is saying all the right things, but really we haven't gotten anywhere. I think that is the crux of the problem. We have not gotten anywhere with the federal government.
In terms of this specific tax revenue or revenue option here, I can't support this the way it is. I have heard other Members say it's only going to be a box of doughnuts, it's only to be this or it's only going to be that. What it is to me, Mr. Chairman, is an increase to the cost of living in the Northwest Territories, something I feel is high enough already. I don't care if it's 25 cents. If it's more, it's too much. I do believe that we have to try to attract people to live in the Northwest Territories. We have to have the skilled labour here. It's very competitive out there right now across the country, across North American, for that matter, in terms of attracting skilled labour. Anything we do to increase the cost of living here is the wrong thing to do. I think we should be trying to look at ways of lowering taxes here and trying to attract people here. I have talked about the permanent trust fund I would like to see the money that Ottawa is taking from us every year and put into this trust fund for the benefit of Northwest Territories down the road and into the future. I think those are things the government should be supporting, not raising taxes. I think it sends the wrong message.
The argument can be made it's for the higher tax brackets, they make enough money already. I can't buy that. I think any tax increase is the wrong thing to do. Again, a lot of the same arguments are the same ones I had for the corporate income tax. I don't think the government has done enough to have a look in the mirror, Mr. Chairman, and try to find ways or means within our own organization where we can effectively cut spending. Like Ms. Lee, I haven't got a lot of say in how things are done and how we might be able to realize some savings. I think once taxes go up, they never come down, unless it's the corporate income tax, but that's another story.
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It's like chasing a rainbow, Mr. Chairman, our relationship with Ottawa and how numbers change week in and week
out, Mr. Chairman. To me, it's not a very good way to run a government. If we are going to have any success here, we have to get a better financial situation, better financial reality with Ottawa. I have got my own ideas on how that might happen, but I will leave it there, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.