Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier and it gets back to my Member's statement from today in terms of intergovernmental relations between our territorial government and Ottawa, the federal government. I want to say quite clearly that I find what happened with the recent raft of federal cuts quite disturbing from an NWT perspective that is, Mr. Speaker. I don't believe it's fair that Ottawa continues to take our resources day in and day out, and it's at about the present tally about $400 million a year and if the pipeline happens $9 billion later it's going to be over a billion dollars a year that the federal government is going to take from the residents and the territory. Mr. Speaker, I do find this quite disturbing because we are on a fixed income here in the NWT. We get $800 million from the federal government every year. We have not got the means nor the ability to replace the dollars like a province could. I don't understand why we weren't consulted. I don't understand why our government didn't take a position, or if they did take a position how come they didn't communicate it with us, the Regular Members? Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Premier, what has the Premier done to communicate to the federal government that the recent round of cuts, and for a variety of very solid reasons, should not have included the dollars that are flowing into the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
David Ramsay on Question 153-15(5): Federal Government Budget Reductions
In the Legislative Assembly on October 20th, 2006. See this statement in context.
Question 153-15(5): Federal Government Budget Reductions
Item 6: Oral Questions
October 19th, 2006
Page 375
See context to find out what was said next.