Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This initiative falls under the Maximizing Opportunities Strategic Initiative, which we worked on as government. I’ve heard from Members on a number of the initiatives saying that it was done in secret, in Cabinet rooms, that there’s been no input. But much of this has been stuff we’ve heard about from the people of the Territories. We’ve heard about our tourism industry, that we haven’t invested. When they compare us to the Yukon, we’re substantially underinvesting in the area of tourism. We want to diversify our economy. The one opportunity we start to look at and put some money in — I’m somewhat disappointed, I’ll say, by the fact that Members use this as the opportunity to send a message.
Members can say, “Well, give me what I want, and I’ll agree with your budget.” If we did that, we would have to in fact, Mr. Chairman, look at old-style politics. We would look at going away from a plan of change. I see these initiatives as the start of change to the way we do business as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’ve heard from people in the Territories talk about doing things differently, and this is not just about what we heard three months ago or six months ago. Many of us have heard this talk for years. Some of them inspired us to come to this table. For years we’ve watched the process unfold, almost hypnotically, about going through this process.
With this section of the budget, finally we’d have some of our past supporters of tourism or even today’s supporters of tourism see some investment, as small as it is. We’re nowhere close to where we should be investing, but we’re starting to make that investment, and that’s going to be shut down. We talk about: let’s not change things; let’s keep things the same. Yes, there are other areas of importance, but there’s never enough money.
When you look at the investment in the parks section, the parks section is seeing $50,000 here, $25,000, $30,000; the odd time you get $100,000 or $200,000 on a big enough initiative. Usually it’s been in the plan for ten years or so. Some of this
stuff has been around as long as that, and it’s finally making a level there, as we heard.
When I was involved in the tourism sector, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that I caught on to very quickly as an operator was the fact that first impressions count for a whole lot. If your first impression wasn’t a good one, you were working your whole trip to convince your guests that it was a good trip. But if their first impressions were already that this was a pretty good trip, that it’s looking good, the fact is that your job was a lot easier, because the product almost sold itself.
We’ve got some work to do here in the Northwest Territories, and we’re trying to do that through this piece of it. We’re starting to enter fields — for example, in the protected areas piece — and occupy some of those fields. It starts with some small steps, and that’s what I see with this: the possibility of starting that change to the process of how we do business and investing in critical areas. As it was said already, parks and tourism don’t normally fall high, even on good days, in budget expenditures. They’re very high on the radar when it comes to meeting the five criteria, when it comes to capital, and that is public safety and asset safety and so on. Those are things we have to consider, and they usually don’t make the cut when it comes down to the final choices we make as an Assembly. Some of the parks we have invested in because of the claims process, for example. Those are things we have to consider when we do this.
I know Members have made up their minds already, and I respect everyone for making up their minds on issues. As much as it may not have been enough in the eyes and the minds of the Members when we brought forward the draft business plans for review and waited for comments back, information was included. We made some changes, and we’ve committed to make some more changes through this process. I was hoping Members would see that as the start of investment in this area, which has been lacking for many years.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to get that, but I’m hoping Members would consider that. Yes, things will be delayed for a year, and the costs will go up in some areas. Some areas will just have to drop off, because other priorities will take over. But this was an opportunity to see some investment in an area that’s been lacking for many years, since the days of capital reductions in ’95–96, I believe. We’ve tinkered with it. We’ve added small segments. Here’s a chance. We had a chance to put in a little bit more, and we’re being told that’s not an important area.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I request that as we vote on this, we’ll do it with a recorded vote.