Mr. Speaker, as this Legislative Assembly is in the final year of its mandate with an election scheduled for this fall, it seems like an appropriate time to take stock of our work to date. In particular, I want to speak about some of the major initiatives we have moved forward over the past year and those that will be the focus of our work for the remainder of our mandate.
I want to congratulate all students from the Northwest Territories who have or will be graduating from high school and post-secondary school programs this spring and summer. The education of our youth remains one of the most pressing challenges facing our territory and a continuing priority of this government.
The record number of graduates we have seen over the past several years from high school and post-secondary institutions, along with the significant investments this Legislative Assembly has made in our education system, bodes well for the future of our territory. To our graduates and all other students, we salute your hard work and commitment and hope you choose to put your knowledge and skills to work in the Northwest Territories.
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Mr. Speaker, when we took office in late 2003, we began a consultative process leading to the development of a strategic plan that has been the basis for our work over the past three and a half years. A major focus of our work has been to provide our residents and communities with the tools they need to help build a better life for themselves and their families.
The most basic need for people in all of our communities is access to affordable housing. While the demand for affordable housing in this territory still far outstrips supply, we have made significant gains in closing the gap. In partnership with the federal government, we have invested $100 million in the affordable housing initiative to
build over 500 new dwellings over a period of three years. We are also working to streamline our traditional programming to ensure greater flexibility and access for those most in need.
Homelessness is also a critical issue in our communities. The issue is a complex one as the factors leading to homelessness are diverse and vary over time. No one sector or level of government alone can address the problems of homelessness. We recognize those on the front lines, who work directly with homeless people or people at risk of homelessness, are best placed to identify effective solutions. Joint action between governments, the private sector and not-for-profit organizations is the best way to reduce and prevent homelessness
An example of this type of joint effort is Bailey House in Yellowknife, named for Reverend Gordon and Ruth Bailey. This facility will offer services beyond those offered in emergency shelters by assisting homeless male clients seeking to make the transition to a permanent community residence. Support for the facility is coming from many sources, including the federal government, the City of Yellowknife, the Bailey House Fundraising Committee, Diavik Diamond Mines, and others. Our government is providing a significant financial contribution to this project through the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Education, Culture and Employment, and Health and Social Services.
This year we will also be seeking applications in communities for projects to provide shelter services for individuals who are homeless and do not have access to emergency housing.
Providing increased and better programming for youth in our communities also remains an important focus for this government. This year we are increasing funding support for the operation of community youth centres. We also continue to provide funding for important programs, such as the NWT Youth Corp, which supports a wide range of youth-at-risk initiatives, and the Take a Kid Trapping, which allows an estimated 1,000 young people to learn more about northern culture through this on-the-land initiative.
Foster care is an essential and necessary service provided throughout the territory by many dedicated foster parents who care for some of our most vulnerable children. As a result of increased concern regarding regional discrepancies in foster care rates, we'll be taking steps during the current session to enhance funding allocated to foster care services in all communities.
Ensuring safe communities remains an essential part of providing residents with the tools to help themselves. Eliminating the instances of violence against families is a critical element of this. In 2004, we tabled our response to the NWT Action Plan on Family Violence. Phase two will be a five-year framework that will improve education and awareness, enhance prevention activities and services, improve training, and further develop partnerships and coordination that will lead to significant investments and concrete actions over the next four years to address issues around family violence. In 2007-2008, we will be proposing additional funding to advance specific actions such as specialized training for shelter workers on helping children who witness abuse.
As part of the government's commitment to enhancing community policing, we are proposing to fund six new RCMP positions to provide full-time policing services in Gameti, Wrigley and Sachs Harbour.
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Contribution funding for victim services organizations has been increased by 50 percent starting this year and we are beginning programs to do outreach work with child victims.
Mr. Speaker, we are also working hard to provide communities with the resources necessary to deal with challenges they face. We have significantly increased funding to community governments over the past three years. Since 2004, we have provided an additional $9.6 million to communities for O and M, and increased funding for community public infrastructure by $12.9 million. We also established a $35 million community capacity building fund to allow communities to address local priorities.
A second priority identified in our strategic plan was the need to negotiate fair deals with Canada and aboriginal governments.
As all Members of this Legislative Assembly contributed greatly to ensuring our message has been heard in southern Canada, in 2005 we went en masse to Ottawa with aboriginal leaders and leaders from our business community to bring this message directly to the federal decision-makers. We also made our case to the Council of Federation Advisory Panel on Fiscal Imbalance and the Federal Expert Panel on Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing.
We were pleased both of these important panels recognized the challenges facing northern governments in providing basic public services to their residents. Their report emphasized a unique territorial characteristic: the small dispersed populations, developing economies, underdeveloped infrastructure, high living costs, challenging social living conditions relative to southern Canada, and evolving political systems in the northern territories.
As a result of these efforts, our overall financial position has improved and stabilized since we took office in 2003. The recent federal budget contained a number of important commitments for northerners, not the least of which was confirmation of a new territorial financing formula. The federal budget also included additional funding to address infrastructure needs, climate change, and several other key priority areas for the North. As well, our borrowing limit has been increased to $500 million, providing future governments with the flexibility to make strategic investments in critical northern infrastructure.
We are pleased that resource revenue sharing discussions can now continue within the context of overall devolution negotiations. As recommended by the expert panel, the Government of Canada will continue to treat natural resource revenues outside of the formula. Consistent with equalization, 50 percent of resource revenues will be excluded from the offset calculation against the federal grant up to a yet to be determined overall cap.
Mr. Speaker, the evolution of this territory is linked closely to transfer for responsibility for lands and resources and
the revenue they generate to northern governments. The Members of this Legislative Assembly passed a motion last fall sending a clear message that we needed to work cooperatively with northern leaders and press harder to get an agreement-in-principle completed in a reasonable time frame.
I am pleased to inform this House today we have reached an agreement-in-principle on devolution and resource revenue sharing between the Inuvialuit Regional Council, the Gwich'in Tribal Council, Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated, and the Northwest Territories Metis Nation and our government.
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This agreement-in-principle represents an important leap forward in the negotiations process and indicates the commitment and solidarity of these organizations to advance and close these vitally important negotiations in a timely manner. The draft agreement-in-principle contains the following key features and proposals:
- • the transfer of the administration and control of federal Crown lands and natural resources to the Northwest Territories;
- • the protection against the abrogation and derogation of aboriginal rights;
- • a framework for the much needed review and reform of current federal lands and resource management systems while providing for the cooperative and coordinated governance of lands and resources among the Government of the Northwest Territories and aboriginal governments;
- • a provision for the fair treatment with respect to resource royalties and for the sharing of these royalties among northern governments; and
- • provision for reasonable and adequate transfer of one-time and ongoing funds for the management and administration of NWT lands and resources.
As part of our agreement with these four aboriginal organizations we have also reached an agreement on sharing the net fiscal benefit that will accrue to northern governments from devolution.
Later this week, we will jointly forward this draft agreement-in-principle to Minister Prentice for his consideration. It is our hope that Minister Prentice responds in a positive manner so we can work towards finalizing this agreement-in-principle quickly with the federal government.
Completing negotiations on devolution, which has gone on for 20 long years, will facilitate the progressive development of governance in the Northwest Territories. Devolution will clearly place the responsibility for our economic and social future and the stewardship of our natural resources and environment where it rightfully belongs and will create incentives for sustainable development. Devolution will also serve to facilitate the conclusion and implementation of self-government agreements.
Mr. Speaker, the face of governance in the Northwest Territories is changing as aboriginal rights negotiations are concluded and agreements are implemented. This environment is a complex one. Agreements deal in varying degrees with aboriginal rights over land, resources and self-government, and these agreements are at differing stages of negotiation or implementation.
We are making tangible progress in these negotiations. We are working with the Tlicho to implement the Tlicho Final Agreement, the first combined land resources and self-government agreement in the Northwest Territories. We have finalized process and schedule agreements with the Gwich'in, Inuvialuit and Norman Wells to negotiate new self-government agreements. We are in the final stages of negotiations of a final Deline Self-Government Agreement; the first community self-government in the Northwest Territories. Last November, our government reached an interim land withdrawal agreement with the Akaitcho Dene First Nation that clarified land issues within the city of Yellowknife.
Mr. Speaker, a third component of our strategic plan is the development of the economy and infrastructure of the Northwest Territories.
A primary driver of our economy over the past 10 years has been the diamond industry. The Northwest Territories is now one of the world's largest producers of diamonds by value. The growth in the diamond industry has been phenomenal, with production in 2006 topping 12.9 million carats with an overall value of $1.6 billion. Currently, Canada produces 11 percent of the total global output of rough diamonds and this is expected to increase to 15 percent when Snap Lake goes into full production. It is an incredible success story for an industry that did not exist in Canada 15 years ago. The success is testament to the ingenuity and perseverance of the Northwest Territories mining industry and their partners.
Our work continues to build a strong diamond mining and manufacturing sector in the Northwest Territories. Recently our government reached an agreement with De Beers to provide rough diamonds to the secondary diamond industry.
If diamond mining represents our present, the development of our vast natural gas and oil resources will be a critical part of our future. The Mackenzie gas pipeline project has potential, if we do it right, to trigger a level of economic growth unprecedented in the history of the Northwest Territories. However, the project is facing difficult challenges and is particularly threatened by significant cost increases. The latest estimate by Imperial Oil shows project costs climbing to $16.2 billion. In this, the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline is not an exception as cost increases are common these days in resource projects throughout the world. At the same time, the projected prices for natural gas are not as robust as they once were. Caught between rising costs and lower revenues, the economics of this project clearly need some work.
We believe these challenges can be overcome if government and industry work together to resolve them. This work will focus our continued discussion with proponents on a stable and secure fiscal environment for the development of the Mackenzie gas pipeline project. As importantly, we believe governments must work together on the development of public infrastructure supporting the project, including the Mackenzie Valley highway.
The Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline is a basin-opening project that will provide significant benefit to Canada beyond the direct economic benefits from this construction. Our government believes the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline is too advanced, too desirable, too necessary and too beneficial to the North and to Canada to allow it to fail.
Our government is working hard to make this project happen. We recently completed a socio-economic agreement with the proponents that included an estimated $21 million training fund, the establishment of an oil and gas advisory board with aboriginal governments, and confirmation from the Mackenzie gas project of employment and procurement commitments for the life of the project. We are also working with the Aboriginal Pipeline Group to facilitate their equity participation in this project.
Mr. Speaker, a lack of infrastructure is perhaps the single biggest impediment to further development in our territory.
We are pleased with the commitment of the federal government in the recent budget to provide each jurisdiction with a base of $25 million annually in infrastructure funding for the next seven years. We intend to work with Members of this House, in the coming weeks, to develop a plan for allocation of this funding to key infrastructure throughout the territory such as the long-term planning for an all-season road to the Arctic Ocean.
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This will build on the work done under the Canada strategic infrastructure fund that was used to reconstruct a total of 60 kilometres of highway, the resurfacing of 52 kilometres of road, the construction of permanent bridges and improvements to the Mackenzie Valley winter road, including construction of bypasses to Norman Wells and Tulita. Additional work will be undertaken over the remaining two years of this agreement.
Mr. Speaker, our government is also working with the Fort Providence Combined Council Alliance, represented by the Deh Gah Got'ie Dene Council, the Fort Providence Metis Council and the Fort Providence Hamlet Council, to finalize an agreement for a public/private partnership to build a bridge across the Mackenzie River.
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The alliance, through the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, will design, construct, finance and operate the bridge and transfer it to the Government of the Northwest Territories at the end of the concession period. I am pleased to report the Bridge Corporation is working with the Department of Transportation to finalize costs, the concession agreement and project financing. The schedule is to complete all necessary documentation soon, with construction anticipated to begin this summer.
The bridge across the Mackenzie River would change the physical landscape and symbolize the change in the political and economic landscape of the Northwest Territories. Our government is committed to supporting this innovative P3 project. The federal government must now step up to the plate and provide its share of the funding necessary for this important piece of the national highway system.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, we have made a commitment in our strategic plan to ensure we are responsible stewards of our environment.
Northerners are acutely aware of the importance of the natural environment and our collective responsibility for environmental stewardship. While more and more Canadians indicate the environment is a major concern, it is here in the North that the effects of climate change are felt most directly.
Energy efficiency and conservation, renewable energy development and the application of emerging technologies and the reduction of energy use by the GNWT are all areas in which our residents are demanding action. In response, the Ministers of Industry, Tourism and Investment and Environment and Natural Resources jointly released the NWT Energy Plan and Revised Greenhouse Gas Strategy in March. The plan proposes a total investment of $6 million for projects throughout the Northwest Territories, including the development of:
- • hydro resources, including the potential development of mini-hydroelectric plants to service small isolated communities;
- • alternative energy projects using wind and geothermal heat pumps;
- • projects using residual heating systems and surplus hydro capacity to heat public buildings;
- • an energy efficient financing program to support energy saving investments made by residents in their homes, appliances and vehicles; and
- • energy conversation programs to reduce household energy use.
The protection of our land, water and wildlife are also critical issues for northerners. Our government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Alberta on the development of a Bilateral Water Management Agreement in March.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.