Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill and the third reading, but I want to raise a note of caution. I think it’s well acknowledged that we’re in a serious financial collapse, at least in the United States, and it appears to be rolling out globally. As a resource extracting economy such as Canada, and to which the Northwest Territories seems to compare, we
are extremely vulnerable to this sort of financial situation. We already know from some of the announcements we’ve heard and that residents are well aware of that the impacts are already being felt here. It’s been about 18 months in the United States that it’s been going and much less than that in Canada. Canada, though, through its better banking and financial regulations and practices may, indeed, be buffered somewhat. But, again, indications are that this is being felt throughout the economy reaching us here.
The Minister of Finance has highlighted in his opening budget address that we are carrying some vulnerability in this area. It’s very difficult to be totally insulated from this, and given our over-weighted reliance on an export economy, the ripple will certainly be felt more and more right here.
What I want to do is really caution this government, of course, encourage them to be very frugal, be very alert and on the lookout for opportunities for savings and increased efficiency, but particularly savings. We don’t know what the impacts yet are on our revenues but they are predicted to be noticeable and they could, in fact, be quite significant. There are opportunities where we can, and we know already from discussions during review of this bill, that there are opportunities.
I want to highlight a couple that we would like to see expenditures go forward and that’s, of course, the Skills Canada one, which we highlighted with the Minister of ECE, and, of course, the milk subsidy which has been raised repeatedly. Those are things that we support going ahead even during these times of recession.
However, when it comes to filling the positions with regard to the Mackenzie Gas Project, which has not been approved yet and so on, we recommend deferring those and other expenditures on that project until such time as, indeed, the Joint Review Panel and the National Energy Board actually approve the project and stipulate the conditions under which it might go forward if approved.
Mr. Speaker, we frequently hear about a lot of spending towards the end of a year and so on and every year seems to be the same. This is actually an opportunity for savings rather than mad expenditures at the end of a year, and I think it would be really smart of us to be aware of that and making sure that those savings are realized, given the possibility of finding ourselves in more financial stress than we are at this moment. Mr. Speaker, I’m very positive, again, with the Cabinet on guard and making sure we capitalize on opportunities for savings and deferred costs that we can come out alright. I just wanted to share those comments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.