Mr. Speaker, let me say again that if you go back to the beginning of our government and look at what the budget was at that time, what it is now, we have a considerable increase in our budget; it's gone up to $1.2 billion. That is what's paying for a lot of our programs. We have $50 million of housing money, not to build 500-plus houses, that's new money that we've achieved. We have had considerable income. We've had expenses because of development; we will have even more. However, for those who are right along the pipeline, they will benefit from the $500 million socio-economic impact fund. The rest of us will benefit from the increased revenue we get from the federal government through our formula. We'll also benefit in the fact that more people are working, more people are paying taxes and more people are making purchases and so on. We're not destitute here. But the issue isn't that we're broke; the issue is that we're not being treated fairly in terms of resource revenues. We'll manage with what we have, but we should get a share of that money that is being made out of the mines, the oil and gas, and that should be our nest egg for that rainy day when we no longer have as much mining going on. That's the argument. Thank you.
Joe Handley on Question 462-15(5): Mackenzie Gas Project Socio-economic Impacts Funding
In the Legislative Assembly on March 8th, 2007. See this statement in context.
Further Return To Question 462-15(5): Mackenzie Gas Project Socio-economic Impacts Funding
Question 462-15(5): Mackenzie Gas Project Socio-economic Impacts Funding
Item 6: Oral Questions
March 7th, 2007
Page 1352
See context to find out what was said next.