I would like to start by saying that I felt the introduction, the context provided here was excellent. I think the quality of life in our communities is what we should be aiming for. Basically, that comes down to the happiness of our children, our families and our communities and recognizing their concerns and showing them that we are actually dealing with it. Several times throughout the document, I noticed the Minister referred to our economy or our environment and our people and various orders. To me, that is totally appropriate and finally I think we are getting some full perspectives out there. This sort of holistic approach, full cost economy approach should get us some real gains that deal with what we profess to talk about, prevention and giving the basic issues long-term solutions.

I am not a big fan of deficits. To me I still see lots of opportunities for being more efficient. Under the fiscal strategy, we protest a lot. We put our calculations through the utmost of agony that we could over redemptions and so on, and obviously we cheated very little. I am hoping at least the program review office will eventually come out with something meaningful and make that agony worthwhile. The short-term economic stimulus master refers to…I think needs to have multiple objectives, not just hiring people and flowing money. It needs to ensure that we gain other

benefits as well, which is still development, greenhouse gas reductions, replacing our old system with new ways of doing things. That should be a filter that all of those projects have to jump through.

The infrastructure is not really part of this but is referred to in our budget. Obviously we have a record of increasing amounts of carry-over when we unsuccessfully take on projects. We now have an amazing $246 million infrastructure capital budget with a strong record of not being able to achieve anywhere near that. So our challenge is very clear. This aggressive response is not necessarily a negative, but with it needs to go some performance, so I think that must be highlighted by now. I know we have had a sub-committee looking at this. They seem to have come forward with a good plan. I am looking for evidence that is actually working.

I am not sure in terms of structure and cost of operations of power corporations. We are now looking at another proposal. I am not sure that selling off our assets and our Power Corporation to a very large multi-billion-dollar development company is necessarily the way to go. It seems like a bit of overkill to me. We have a company here that we own. We should be able to get them dealing with reality and with some innovative responses. So I think that is more what the final response we are looking for is here: Providing NWT communities and residents with the tools they need on energy issues and so on, replacing diesel with other forms of energy. These are things that a number of us have been calling for and are very happy to see it in the budget there. These perspectives, developing alternative energy, there are many opportunities right now that are relatively easy to achieve and the government has moved on some of these in terms of replacing fossil fuel, heating of appliances with wood pellet boilers and so on. I think that is the way to go in the short term while we wrestle with the more problematic things that we have on the list.

I am hoping to see this year some substantive move towards dealing with a systemic approach, especially for our smaller communities. We talked about commercial subsidies and whatnot, and maybe I will deal with that in a bit here, but we have a real opportunity to do things in a much better way and achieve multiple objectives at the same time.

On revenue, again, we are very lucky in the North. We have this 70 percent base and so we are somewhat protected in a recession but we also have to recognize, obviously, that some of our companies are slowing down in their operations, so we are losing tax revenue and so on. I was hoping to see much more of a progressive approach in the revenue generation side. Obviously, we have been very modest; $7.5 million planned this year and

some questions about the future. In terms of income, I think it is well established throughout the world, in fact, but certainly in North America, Canada and likely here in terms of income. Ninety percent of gains have been achieved by about 1 percent or the top tenth of 1 percent of people, and that is a fairly obscene accumulation of wealth in a smaller and smaller number of people. To me I see opportunities for developing some new tax brackets and a response there. There are other things that obviously we can be thinking of there. I think we will have more discussions on that this year.

Investments in our economy, there are some good things there. Again, if we can make good use of the capital, I see with housing infrastructure, acceleration of Building Canada Fund, again get those multiple objectives working there, we should really make some gains to the extent that we can actually get some projects accomplished.

The Arctic Energy Alliance I think is a good focus for million dollars there. I am concerned about the Territorial Power Subsidy Program, $3 million up on the commercial power costs. Business as usual is out the window. We cannot keep doing the same old thing and perhaps there is some innovation here that I am not aware of. I would like to assume that $3 million will be put towards supporting commercial enterprises generating their own power with green energy, this sort of thing, rather than just business as usual throwing dollars at a sinkhole. I will be looking for new details on that.

The increase in funding to the arts, again, I think that is well established. I think even the Government of Canada said for every dollar they invest, they get $1.85 or something of economic activity, so that is a good investment. I think that is well developed. This Assembly has a good record now of bumping up support in that direction. Again, a substantial increase to the SEED program, the Support to Entrepreneurs and Economic Development. I would like to hear a little bit more about programs that are applicable under that program.

Investments in our environment, I think I won’t say too much about that except that it is very good to see this happening. It is a substantial effort. It will all be in the details and we will all be helping focus things to make sure that we get the most out of it.

Investments in people, again something you have heard me speak on before. Early childhood education, something that I see has a little bit more support here which is a good recognition of need. Some of the health programs, care for seniors, especially in small communities that have been established and so on.

Finally, I guess, the support for volunteer non-government organizations, I think we seem to be waiting on this magic meeting that is going to happen. We have a two-year record of that. I see a little bump up this year. We have not been indexing our support to our non-government organizations according to cost as we do ourselves. This has left a deficit that needs to be recognized and responded to. I am hoping that we are going to be doing more on that. All in all, Mr. Chair, I do support this project and I am looking forward to contributing to tune-ups where they are needed.

Obviously, the milk subsidy really needs to be addressed. Skills Canada responded well to what we wanted. Now we need to respond to them. Family violence is a good program worth our support. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.