Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion.

I'll allow the mover of the motion to close off the debate. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank my honourable colleagues for their support in the motion. They have spoken their truth; they have spoken their wisdom in terms of their support and the questions they have on this motion. I appreciate that, that they would support the people in the Northwest Territories on this motion. I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the government takes a serious, strong recommendation in terms of this motion to help the people in the small communities.

Mr. Speaker, in my studies and in working with people, I have learned about Abraham Maslow and Maslow's hierarchy of needs of a human being. Mr. Speaker, very simply, Maslow's hierarchy of needs said, "The basic human needs met are food, shelter, and a sense of belonging." That's all that people want, to a point where they get to self-actualization. If you have the three basic needs covered, according to this gentleman here, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you have it covered. That's what this motion is talking to are these basic needs that we are providing for our people in the Northwest Territories.

So I thank the Members again for their support. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

---Applause

Motions. Honourable for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this time I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member is seeking unanimous consent to deal with the motion he gave notice of earlier today. Are there any nays? There are no nays. You may proceed with your motion, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi, colleagues.

WHEREAS the recent spending cuts by the federal government have directly impacted the Northwest

Territories through the loss of approximately $500,000 for literacy programs, $279,000 from the First Nations and Inuit Tobacco Control Strategy and $161,000 to volunteer programs;

AND WHEREAS the recent federal spending cuts to the Visitor GST Rebate Program, Court Challenges Program, Status of Women Canada, and Museum Assistance Program will also impact Northwest Territories businesses and organizations to an extent that has not yet been quantified;

AND WHEREAS the federal government made these spending cuts without any notice to or consultation with the Government of the Northwest Territories or the affected organizations;

AND WHEREAS in the absence of a resource revenue sharing agreement, the Government of the Northwest Territories, unlike provincial governments, has limited ability to replace the federal funding from its own revenues;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends the Government of the Northwest Territories convey to the federal government a strong objection to the recent cuts to the federal programs in the Northwest Territories, and press the federal government to reinstate these funds;

AND FURTHER, that the Government of the Northwest Territories convey to the federal government a strong opposition to any further cuts to federal programs in the Northwest Territories in advance of a resource revenue sharing agreement.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Motion is on the floor. Motion is in order. To the motion. The Member for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker...(English not provided)

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to talk about this motion that's put forward today, the importance of the Literacy Program, the federal cut that we just faced just a couple weeks back. When we toured the communities in the past, last year and this past year, literacy was a big issue as well in the community. We have a lot of people in the community that are non-educated. There might have been some people that went through residential school, but at the same time there are people that fell through the cracks. They're the ones that are lucky enough, like myself, that went off to high school and college. But at the same time, there are people out there in our communities that are facing challenges, literacy challenges. That's why we're here today talking about this motion that I have moved. The importance of reintroducing that to this House again, because I've spoke to it on numerous occasions, Mr. Speaker; the importance and the relevance of reinstating this program. Although we talked in the House here about talking with the federal government and how we can strategize with the three Premiers, it's a start for us, but at the same time I think this motion reiterates that as well, makes it stronger. We all face the community members, the elders, and so we'll hear from them even more when we visit the communities after this session.

When I spoke my language, I talked about the unity, working together. When I questioned the Premier earlier about having our own community governments and aboriginal governments getting involved in the process with resource revenue sharing, we talk about how we can proceed to get some action, results, from negotiations. To date, we haven't seen anything yet. That is why we are stressing to the government sitting in front of us that we need to be involved; the grassroots people we call them, our elders, our negotiators, our leaders from the communities.

With that, Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, there are people out there who cannot stand up here and talk for themselves. We are here elected representing them. They can certainly not read or write, at least 42 percent of them. It varies throughout the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker.

I would just like to stress that, Mr. Speaker, the importance of this motion that is in front of us and how it has a huge impact on the NWT Literacy Council, volunteerism and different programs that were cut as well.

I would just like to point out that the NWT Literacy Council also represents the national literacy organizations such as the Movement for Canadian Literacy. Literacy, again, Mr. Speaker, is very important to us. I just want to elaborate on that. I hope this House will support it and move forward with it and Cabinet take it as a recommendation and move forward with it and how we can work together. Mahsi.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to stand here in this House today in support of this motion. I am happy to second this motion that is before us today on the restoration of funding for the federal cuts that recently took place here. Mr. Speaker, I am as disturbed as the next Member on these cuts and what they mean to the residents of the Northwest Territories. That's why I am very happy to be seconding the motion that is before us.

Cuts in literacy, volunteerism, the smoking cessation; these are programs that impact our residents tremendously. I have mentioned it before in this House, the other day when I was questioning the Premier on this. We are not a province. We are a territory. We have a very limited ability in replacing any of these funds that are cut. But, Mr. Speaker, we do have a $1.1 billion budget. My message through this motion today is if the government can't go back to the federal government, our government go back to the federal government, and demand, until there is a resource revenue dealing in place, that they reinstate every single dollar that came out of program funding here in the Northwest Territories, then we are going to go back in the business plans and the budget, and we are going to find the dollars and we are going to replace those dollars. I think that, to me, is fundamental. We can find the money. We can come up with the money to support those programs. I know that and many Members on this side of the House know that. That might be the step, Mr. Speaker, that we need to take.

We have to send a strong and clear message to Ottawa. That hasn't been done. We stand by, we continue to just

be treated as second-class citizens in this country, Mr. Speaker. It's not acceptable. We have to put our foot down.

To the groups out there who lost this funding, and I will mention this right now, we have the capacity to replace it. If the federal government is not going to do it, then I would suggest we start looking at ways and means as a government to come up with the dollars to carry out these programs that are essential to our residents here in the Northwest Territories and we start putting our money where our mouth is. Mahsi.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak and vote in favour of this motion and an opportunity for me to add my voice in letting the federal government know how devastating and offensive these cuts are to the North, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when the new Conservative government came into power, I was told by someone who remembered the previous Conservative government days awhile back that there would be cuts in programs and services. With this being a minority government, Mr. Speaker, I really didn't expect the cuts to come so swiftly and so severely. I could not have imagined that the cuts would be aimed at such programs and services that are of such value to so many citizens, especially in the North, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, what hurts more, I think, is that this is not a case where the cuts came up as a fiscal restraint measure where the government is running out of money, we all have to tighten the belt, can we look around? Can we do more with less? It was not at all like any of that sort of measure. I know the cuts hurt all the time, but if it was that sort of exercise, I think there might be some support and more support.

Mr. Speaker, what we have here in Canada is a real ideological war, in my opinion. This is really about principles. I remember somebody saying when the previous government was going through a hard time, there were a lot of people saying I would like to have a leader who is very clear about what he stands for and I like a government with principles. I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, in a way I am glad that the Conservative government has made it very clear exactly what their principles are, because I believe this is giving us an opportunity to really rethink, as a Canadian and as residents of NWT, about exactly what our principles are, exactly what our values are, in terms of what we would like the government to do. What other levels of services, what are the priorities? Mr. Speaker, for many years, we have taken lots of programs and services for granted. I think when the people have a chance to rethink that, when the opportunity arises, people are going to exercise or put that letter X into the appropriate place and put this government back to the old reform and alliance closets that this new government came from.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the Canadian principle is that we value literacy, especially in the North. This is a dire issue. The NWT Literacy Council had an exemplary record in providing very valuable programs and services all over the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. I have seen and participated in gatherings of community literacy workers from all over the North where these workers got together in the Northern United Place just last fall and they were talking about the programs that they are working on in our communities and how they are making a difference in that regard. They had projects pasted around the walls and these are programs where people have gone about taking care of business and looking after our people's interests.

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you my principles stand in support of the literacy workers. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Prime Minister of Canada knows that BHP has the largest program in literacy in the North because the government has failed to provide necessary literacy training. BHP, as an employer, has realized that in order to hire our northern aboriginal people, they needed to help them with literacy programs. Mr. Harper should realize there is more to resource development than just extracting resources. The more important part of resource development is that we have to work on the human resources, and that includes enabling our human resources to take opportunity of employment situations that come out of resource development projects. Cutting these kinds of literacy programs and other programs that he has done is working backwards, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard the proponents of these literacy cuts and geo cuts saying in the national media and territorial media that most of this money goes to staff, the office, and there is an argument made by the Conservative-thinking people that the less social programs there are, the better off. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, for those who speak like that, I wonder who do they think should deliver these programs if not the people sitting in offices? Who does it take to organize all these community people to develop programs? Certainly it's not going to be robots. I find that really offensive, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to tell you that if the Conservative government wants the government to stay small, that would be more reason to support these NGO programs in offices. I am telling you, these people work at low wages, practically volunteering, and it would cost the government a lot more money to deliver programs on literacy, on smoking cessation, youth employment, adult literacy, anything you can think of, women's programs. NGOs are a better return on money than the government. This is even going against its principles.

This takes me to the next section about volunteer money. Mr. Speaker, I could only assume that Conservatives don't see the value in the volunteer sector. Mr. Speaker, my city of Yellowknife tops the charts year after year in a vast array of interested volunteerism. Volunteer NWT has made huge progress over the last two years in just a short two years to foster and expand this initiative throughout the NWT, so that benefits to be gained by volunteering and volunteerism would spread all over the North. I don't agree with the Conservative principle that this is not a cause worth government spending.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on and on stating my differences with the Conservative principles, but I don't agree with the principle that the government should not use its surplus cash to fund smoking cessation programs, youth employment programs, women and volunteer programs, as well as the group seeking to protect equality rights through the Court Challenges Program, Law Reform Commission. The list goes on and on and on. Of course,

we are in this House mostly concerned right now about cuts to literacy funding.

Mr. Speaker, when these cuts were announced without warning, I have to tell you this was not unplanned or arbitrary. These cuts were designed to show exactly where the Conservative government stands. Mr. Speaker, this Conservative government stands exactly to the right of even the most right wing Republican government in the U.S. As the Liberal MP from Nova Scotia said, this government is so right, it's wrong.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of principle that really works for those who have sufficient personal and financial resources to live life without ever getting help from publicly funded programs. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in the States who got tax cuts from the Bush government even though they said they didn't want it. On the smaller scale, Conservative principles work for people like me. I would like to say that I am quite self-sufficient. I could probably live the rest of my life without getting a lot of help from publicly funded programs. It's a principle that believes the less government, the better and any effort to redistribute the wealth of our nation through government programs and services is seen as some kind of a waste of tax money and not a good distribution of public resources. You know what, Mr. Speaker? That's a principle I don't agree with and I don't think that's a principle that works for our situation in the North because, if left unchecked, I believe this principle will have an even more devastating effect in the North. In the North, we don't have economic and social sufficiency or even political sufficiency at the moment without devolution and resource revenue sharing. We are not a self-sustaining economy or a self-sustaining polity at the moment and we don't have the social structure to go on our own. This is a place where a good positive role of the government is very crucial in the progress of our people.

Mr. Speaker, I believe this is a Conservative principle that will see more of our people being left behind. There will be a lot more cuts and I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, with this motion and this point forward we have to keep telling the federal government that this is not the way to go. Even in the most booming economy and where there is such a surplus in federal funds, they should be doing more to accommodate and facilitate progress of our people rather than doing everything they can to leave all the people who don't have it behind and just take care of the people who can already take care of themselves.

Mr. Speaker, obviously I cannot speak strongly enough about how opposed I am to these cuts. I am sending out the warning that this might even just be the beginning of a lot more to come. If we don't take a big stand, we could see out of control spending on defence, out of control deficit going up because there will be tax increases to see the tax money or good distribution of resources to spend on their priorities. We are going to continue to see a government that chooses to go after made-in-Canada solutions for global problems like global warming. Mr. Speaker, I believe this is just the start of a big conservation we are going to have and we have to tell the federal government that enough is enough and they are not going to get one step further than where they are now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Lee. To the motion. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I just want to rise in support of the motion for the fact of all the arguments you have heard already here. I will just make mine brief. With these cuts in the literacy section of the federal cuts, Mr. Speaker, where the rates of illiteracy right across Canada are highest amongst the aboriginal population, I don't know if the federal government really realizes this, but that's the sector of the human resource population in Canada that has the most potential to assist this government or the federal government in dealing with the big labour market shortages that we are experiencing right now today. The potential to turn that whole human resource sector around has also been taken a step backwards just with some literacy cuts in that area.

Human development and well-being is not only measured in gross domestic product, which is just rising every day here in the NWT. We can still go out to the communities and see high unemployment rates, high suicide rates, high crime rates, sexual abuse rates and family abuse rates. You can't just measure it by gross domestic product only. The human development indicator is one of the best indicators used at the international level is literacy. That's one of the most important indicators of human well-being in any country. That's a basic measurement of how well a country is dealing with either an economic resource boom or a resource bust. Literacy is one of the prime indicators in that measurement.

With the cuts in the literacy funding at the national level, again we are taking a step backward. Why do we have to rely on BHP to provide literacy funding and education to the people who it wants to retain, that being the aboriginal population which has much pride and admiration for themselves and they are kind of reluctant to say they don't know how to read and write. That's why the onus is on our government to provide some kind of an interim funding to cover off the shortfalls that all these NGOs are going to experience because of the federal government cuts in the area of literacy, volunteerism and smoking cessation, because of the fact that we will definitely benefit from it. We have a lot to lose and everything to gain if we just cover off on the interim measures, these funding cuts, whether it be from other programs that aren't high priority. I think it has the utmost priority of this government to keep the ball rolling in literacy, development and human well-being in the NWT, that being literacy funding, funding of volunteerism and such.

If we don't do that and don't come up with some interim options of how we are going to address this issue, we are going five years back in less than a year and everything is going to go down the tube along with the federal government cuts, and we're going to be starting from scratch again. I just don't want to see the snowball stop rolling. I think it's building all the time and we have to keep building on it. With just providing some interim measures, interim funding arrangements, we can keep that ball going just as long as it takes to get some federal government attention back to this issue of literacy funding and volunteerism across Canada. I think that's of utmost importance just with this government here today. You know, we can deal with the federal government when the time comes, but just as an interim option I think it's very important that we keep that momentum going with industry, government and NGOs and provide them with the funding that they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. To the motion. I'll allow the mover of the motion to wrap up. Mr. Yakeleya, to the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, colleagues. A quick, short support for this motion, and it just really puts into question in terms of the attitude of the federal government in terms of cutting wasteful spending all across Canada and not speaking to our leaders in terms of the potential impacts that it will have in the Northwest Territories. One of my colleagues has said that we are not a province, so it's very unfair the way we're being treated, but it's nothing new, by the federal government parties. So I would speaking in favour of the motion and Mr. Lafferty will have my full support. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. Honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think I've stated my position on this motion a couple times, and more recently this afternoon during my Member's statement. I am in full support of this motion. When I talked to somebody from Volunteer NWT and they say that they're worried about their $161,000 cut, that concerns me. We ask people in the Northwest Territories to do a job and we seem to make it more and more difficult for them, and these cuts from federal government are not helping. So I am in full support of this motion, and if they don't want to restore our funding, then I think everybody in the Northwest Territories should look at using this letter X that I was speaking about...

---Laughter

...and maybe put somebody else in there that will. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in vigorous support of this motion.