I’m not going to go into a ton of detail department by department or anything like that because we’re going to do that as we go through the line by line in each department.

On page 2 in the statements the Minister of Finance said a serious economic downturn is not time for governments to reduce overall spending. I’d just like to put on the record that I agree with that. I think that’s an important statement to be made in this day and age, especially with the financial world as it is.

Having said that, I do have some concerns with some particular areas. I think there’s a lot of good stuff in what the Minister said during his budget address, but this document doesn’t obviously highlight some of the areas that had to be reduced in order to get to some of those good initiatives.

The Department of Health, obviously I’m passionate about the provision of health and social services in the Northwest Territories and to me a 1.2 percent increase in health is actually a 2.3 percent reduction. Because forced growth is usually about 3 percent to 3.5 percent. I know we needed to find some reductions out there; we needed to make sure we had some efficiencies. But given the cost of providing health care throughout Canada, we already pay the lowest amount of our total budget on health care compared to any other jurisdiction. Although a 1.2 percent does appear to be an increase, it is technically a decrease.

I guess what I want to say about that is we spend a lot of time looking at our department as individuals and little entities, little silos. I don’t believe that’s the best way for us to be doing business. I think we need to be able to stand up and look at the entire

government as a whole and as we’re targeting these individual groups, these individual departments to become efficient and find some efficiencies and hopefully find some money which allows us to do those valuable reinvestments that the Cabinet and the Legislature have been putting forward, I think we need to be cautious that we’re not taking from some departments that fit less with our vision than others at the expense of the others. Health care is important; education is important; justice is important. I’d say those are the three most important departments and the provision of services. Not infrastructure, because infrastructure is a bit of a different thing.

I’d like for all of us to find a way to stand up and look at the big picture and see where we’re flowing the money and some of the reinvestments. They make good sense. Like, obviously my colleague Mr. Menicoche is right; the park projects in the small communities are incredibly valuable to those small communities by way of job creation and whatnot, but I’m worried there are those things that make the most sense for the budget as a whole and providing services. We’re here to provide services to our people. I’m not criticizing any individual project, but I think it’s time for us to stand up and look at the big picture.

Moving through, I really like what we did in October with respect to the infrastructure stuff. I like that we got into that a little early. It gave you guys a lot of time to get out there and do the planning. Now we hear from the feds that they’re going to be expediting that process from four to two years, which on the face of it sounds absolutely fantastic. Last year we had to defer $50 million-- and correct me if the number’s wrong; if I remember correctly it was around $50 million -- because we weren’t going to get the stuff built. I know the world has changed. I was watching the news last night and Alberta was talking about the number of tradespeople and whatnot, construction people that are finding less work to do. They’re doing a lot of cutbacks. Hopefully that means we’ll be able to find some people to actually build the stuff we want to build. We’ve got a lot of money here to build a lot of stuff and it will be fantastic for this Territory to move forward and renovate the schools and build the roads and do all that. I think as a Legislature we’ve done a pretty good job of getting those identified, and thanks to Cabinet for taking those forward to the feds to fight for those. But I’m just worried that we’re not going to be able to build that stuff in the time that we have. I don’t know what Cabinet is doing to ensure that we actually get out there and build that infrastructure. That’s what we need to do to spark this economy. We need to actually build this stuff. We need to stop talking about building this stuff and we need to actually see the things being done. We need to see the roads being fixed

and we need to see the schools opening their doors to allow the children to come in and learn. I’d like to hear from the Minister of Finance at some point on what we are doing. Can we guarantee that we’re going to actually build these things that we talked about building?

On page 5 the Minister indicated that we need to promote the NWT as a great place to live. We need to make investments to reduce the cost of living. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I’m not convinced that the changes proposed for supplemental health that came forward in December are actually going to help reduce the cost of living. I think it’s actually going to increase the cost of living for many Northerners and have negative ramifications if the model goes through. Now, to the department’s credit we’ve heard the Minister say that we are going to go back and look at this and make sure that it fits and works. But until we see that we have to be a little bit cautious on that. Make sure that we don’t increase the cost of living to any of our residents.

I had comments...Just bear with me; I’m not going to use my whole 10 minutes.

I have to say that we went through a bit of a scare last session when we started talking about revenue options. There was a lot of panic in the community. I think the Cabinet’s come forward with a decent proposal on how to increase some of our tax revenues. I think if we’re going to tax things, things like cigarettes and liquor seem like a reasonable place to start. Increasing taxes in that area I think is a good start. I think it will help us raise some money, but it will also maybe force some people to smoke less and drink less, which can only be good for us in the long run as far as the health of our residents of the Northwest Territories. That’s coming from a guy who used to enjoy three-quarters of a pack of cigarettes a day and who doesn’t smoke anymore, I must say for the record.

---Applause

I know smoking three-quarters of a pack a day basically was $300 a month for me, which is now my car payment. So I think increasing taxes affect and scare a few more people off of smoking. I think it is a good thing and is going in the right direction. Those people who want to smoke will be able to smoke, but they will be contributing a little bit more to our economy and our tax base and are helping us fund the programs that are valuable and important to the people of the Northwest Territories.

When we get into line by line, I do have some questions. I will ask you some specific questions on some of the cuts that you propose and some of the reinvestments that you suggested. Overall, I think that there is some stuff in here that Cabinet and

Regular Members should be proud of. I think it is in the right direction. There are some areas that I think we do need to debate further, but overall I am happy with it.

There is another question for the Minister responsible for lands. When we get there, he can answer it. I am just a little confused. On page 12, the Minister of Finance said the GNWT has made a proposal to Canada that provides for the transfer for legislative authority over land and resources to the GNWT. It would also establish an ongoing partnership with Canada on strategic infrastructure and major development of the NWT. I am curious. We had a discussion with you and we talked with the Premier about a proposal that was made I think it was like a major infrastructure, but I didn’t think that was a legislative authority change. I am not sure what this one is. I am a little confused by this one. It might be the one you already told us about, but I would like a little bit more detail on that one, if someone gets a chance to give us a bit of a response.

Overall, not bad. There will be debate. There will be discussion. There’s some room to talk about a few of these things but overall I think it is a good budget. Thank you.