Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I cannot support the principle of the bill for this budget for many reasons. I’m going to attempt, in the time allotted today, to explain some of those reasons.
There is so much wrong with this budget that, in fact, there is more wrong with it than there is right with it. During the budget process which would follow this if this were given second reading, we only have the ability to delete. Anything that we’d like to add is only a recommendation. What would make the Cabinet listen to those recommendations now? Maybe some people are hopeful, but I’m not.
Mr. Speaker, Cabinet Ministers did not accept these recommendations when we responded to the Main Estimates. They have not, obviously, responded to the issues that have been brought forward on the floor of this House. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, when I asked the Premier on Friday if the government would consider delaying the job cuts and the reinvestments until after a program
review had been concluded, his one-word answer was “no.”
Mr. Speaker, a lot of Members have spoken to the fact that they do not recognize this budget as their budget. When I look at the reductions and the reinvestments, they are far off the mark and not recognizable to me, a person who was involved in our session when we got together to identify strategic priorities of the 16th Assembly. I don’t
know how they came together, but they seem random. If you took this Budget Address document and you were a completely objective, independent observer of this, and you were asked to find a theme, a vision, a direction in this document that is concise and understandable, it would be very, very difficult to do that. It doesn’t emerge; it just doesn’t come out of the actions that are being taken and that are reflected in this budget.
Now, albeit I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this budget was produced in a fairly short time frame, and the government did ask Regular Members to consider postponing this budget until the fall. There was concern on this side of the House, and by myself as well, that to be in office for almost an entire year without having developed a 16th Assembly budget did not seem palatable. We
were reasonably confident that the departments and the people could roll up their sleeves and come back with something that would be acceptable. So for that part of it, I feel like I could take some responsibility for this not being acceptable.
However, I won’t take responsibility for the lack of responsiveness on the other side of the House. We, as Regular Members, did work hard to make sure that we had input when we knew that there was a potential for reductions. We got together and we came up with a very comprehensive and very good list of areas where we felt there could be substantial savings that would be low-impact. It would not be doing drastic things like cutting 135 positions or 80-some positions that are unoccupied right now in the public service. It did not include any measures like that.
That list was sent to the Cabinet. They said they would need time to analyze that. But that comes to the very point of what’s wrong with this budget. Neither the reinvestments nor the reductions have been properly thought out. It is not in-depth; it is random. It is not reasoned, and it is damaging. It is costly damage, not just in a monetary way but also to the lives of people who have devoted themselves to the public service and this government, to the people who are the recipients of the programs and services, and to the economies of our communities. Government jobs in communities…. Not that that’s the only reason they’re there, but certainly a side benefit of having those jobs in those communities is that they do create an economy. Communities of all sizes greatly depend on that economy. So, Mr.
Speaker, there are far-reaching negative implications of this budget.
There’s also really a mixed message about this budget. The Premier went to the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce recently and talked about major infrastructure development, like a road down the Mackenzie Valley. That, in and of itself, is not a bad idea. We just agreed to build a $165 million bridge. Again, that in and of itself, is not terrible, but do you see the mixed message, Mr. Speaker, when we’re talking about megaprojects, hydro expansions, roads, bridges? It sends a mixed message in a very prosperous economy, the fastest-growing economy in the country, that we as a government can’t figure out a way to realign, refocus, reassess our spending without having to take drastic measures such as just randomly laying off and deleting 200 positions in our public service. It’s a real mixed message, and I don’t like that.
When you add into the same budget this absolute necessity to reduce spending and reduce jobs and mix in the reinvestment, it really shoots the argument of the necessity for the reductions all to heck. I mean, I don’t know how else to describe it. Here we are, we’re crying poor, saying we can’t afford this. Yet in the same budget, we’re undertaking and identifying all these reinvestments. Like I said, all of them together all wrapped up don’t look recognizable to me as anything we have discussed as a government.
If I had wanted to identify possible reductions in the public service, first I would undertake a much needed program review. After that, I would find out if any of the public service members were interested in voluntary separation, early retirement or reassignment. Then, and only then, after every reasonable option had been exhausted, would I be making position cuts as an absolute last resort.
In the February sitting of this Legislature, many of us asked the government, asked the Premier, if these kinds of decisions were going to be made without consultation, without really in-depth analysis. And we were assured that that was not going to happen. I was just looking at 60 pages of Hansard, where many of the Members on this side of the House wanted — sought — reassurances that we would be consulted before something like that happened. As you know, we’ve said it before, but let’s say it again: we get up; we walk out of here; the next day, letters go out to 135 potentially affected employees. Mr. Speaker, that’s not acceptable.
For me, it’s all about getting a good budget. I’m not interested in taking valuable time, the month of June, to debate this budget — I don’t think the budget is salvageable, not for me — when strides could be made during that time to perform the thorough analysis and study that needs to go into
the changes, as opposed to spending it here with limited opportunity to change much about the budget.
Mr. Speaker, I want to stress that at the end of the day, I respect every Member’s right to choose if they can live with this budget or not, or their choice to get into that line-by-line, activity-by-activity, program-by-program debate. I do applaud every Member for taking the time today to explain the reasons for their decisions, because I do believe that the public has the right to know where we stand.
I also want to state, Mr. Speaker, that for me, this is not a confidence issue. This is a consensus government. People can make it a confidence issue if they want to. But I asked for this budget to be prepared on a compressed time frame; I was one of many votes for that to happen. I do not see any loss of face or loss of confidence if the government was to say to the Members on this side of the House, “We realize there are problems with this budget. Let’s get together. Let’s find out if we can salvage this.” But when we ask those questions, we get flat-out refusal and raising the stakes, so to speak. I think that’s completely unnecessary in a consensus government. I think that we are owed the opportunity to come up with a budget and a product that we can all feel confident in.
In summary, Mr. Speaker, those are some of the things that I think are wrong with this budget. It doesn’t take into account the input of 11 of the 19 Members of this Legislature; it’s premised on questionable fiscal forecast information; it is a contradiction to the growing economy and prosperity opportunities around us; the process shows disrespect to the public service. Even if we had to cut positions, there’s a way to do that after all other options have been exhausted. We must provide good fiscal planning, policy and process, premised on guiding principles of reasoned analysis. The damage that this budget, if it were to proceed as it is, would cause would be very costly and would not be demonstrating prudent financial stewardship by making reasoned decisions.
If I didn’t feel so strongly about his budget, I would just go with the flow. But I’m here to make decisions and to defend those decisions. My decision here today — respectfully, Mr. Speaker — is to vote no to the second reading of this budget document. Thank you.