Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to update Members and NWT residents on our Territory’s economic outlook and what it means for our government’s fiscal planning. Although it has only been two months since this Assembly passed the 2009-10 budget and departments have begun to implement its initiatives, we need now to start our planning for 2010-11 and beyond.

This will mark the third year of implementation of our plan to address our priorities of the 16th Assembly as outlined in our vision: Northerners Working Together. Earlier this week I met with my federal, provincial and territorial Finance colleagues to review the state of the global and national economies and the prospects for the next few years.

We are in the midst of the deepest global recession since World War II and this has had a significant impact on Canada’s economy. However, to date, Canada’s economy has been affected the least of the major world economies. Furthermore, there are some signs of stabilization that lead some forecasters to predict that the recovery, although a muted one, could begin by the end of 2009.

The fiscal stimulus measures planned by the federal, provincial and territorial governments are amongst the strongest in the world and are expected to provide an important source of economic support for this country in the short term. Despite this, the economy is weaker than was expected last fall and winter when we put our 2009-10 budget together. We estimate the diamond mine production in 2009 will be at least 25 percent lower than last year’s levels as a result of shutdowns and planned reductions in activity.

Mineral exploration activity is expected to fall by 80 percent from last year and indications are that total capital investments in the NWT will decline over 30 percent from 2008.

Our government’s revenues are being affected by the economic slowdown. The size of the impact will depend on how deep and how prolonged the slowdown is. Although our transfers from Canada will remain stable, we expect our corporate income tax revenues to be significantly lower than in previous years. Based on recent forecasts of corporate profits Canada-wide, we can see our 2009-2010 corporate income tax revenues decline by $40 million from the amount we planned for in our budget. If the NWT’s resource-based corporations are hit harder than the national average, GNWT revenues could fall even more.

We don’t know the actual impact on our tax revenues until later this fall, but we are planning based on the assumption that we will have fewer resources to meet the many needs we face.

There are some key questions that we will need to answer as we develop our plans. First, should we be changing our course to respond to reduced revenues as a result of the economic downturn? In the immediate term my answer would be no. The 2009-2010 budget we just approved was a sound response to a slowing economy. We kept the growth in O and M spending to only 2 percent. We introduced some modest new revenue measures.

However, in recognition of the NWT’s large infrastructure deficit and the need for our government to act as a counterbalance in the economy to offset the decline in private sector investment, we’ve put in place plans to invest in a record amount of capital infrastructure this year. Furthermore, we are proposing a supplementary appropriation bill this session which, after considering both capital carry-overs from the previous fiscal year and the investment related to the accelerated federal stimulus plan, will bring our 2009-2010 capital investment to $425 million.

For the medium and longer term, we need to consider how deep and how long the recession will last. A sharp, short drop and quick recovery would have different implications than a prolonged downturn and slow recovery. For example, we may be able to keep our infrastructure investment levels

high in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, but if our revenues may not recover for some time we need to ask ourselves how much debt the government can afford to take on going into an economic downturn.

Our plans for 2009-2010 assumed we would have to borrow approximately $80 million by the end of the fiscal year on a short-term basis. Our higher capital investment plans this year will not likely require significantly more borrowing since they will be financed in part through capital carry-overs from 2008-2009 and in part through cash advanced by Canada under the Building Canada Plan. If our corporate tax revenues are lower than forecast, we may need to borrow more than planned.

The second key question we need to consider is whether this government should plan to borrow on a longer-term basis. Borrowing can make sense in the short term, but we need to understand how much we can afford and have a plan both for paying the interest and for paying back the debt. As a government we are constrained on what we can borrow, not only by the federal debt limit of $500 million, of which $156 million is spoken for, but also by what we can afford.

We also can’t ignore the fact that our population is continuing to decline. The numbers released last January showed that the NWT population fell by over 1 percent. That’s more than 475 people or almost $12 million when fully factored into our territorial formula funding payments. We won’t see the impact of this in 2009 because of the lag in our TFF, but this will hit us in the next few years unless we can turn the trend around. We need to understand what this means for our Territory and talk about how we should respond to this problem.

Borrowing an affordable amount to get us through this economic slowdown is an appropriate response. While not our plan, continuing to borrow until we hit the debt wall will ultimately mean cutting future programs and services and increasing taxes to pay our debt obligations.

The final key question is, how do we manage our expenditures as we enter the recovery? This means putting tougher controls on ongoing spending growth, limiting investments in strategic change, and reducing the level of new capital investments once the current budget has passed. Reductions and reallocations of spending need to be a regular part of the planning process as opposed to being implemented on a crisis basis. We also need to take a longer-term approach to revenue growth.

The global economy is in a state of change and uncertainty. Worldwide economists and policymakers are struggling to understand the causes and develop solutions. As a Territory we are not sheltered from the effects of this downturn. But we need to remember that we enter this period of

economic slowdown in relatively good fiscal shape with a plan for long-term fiscal sustainability.

The challenges of the economic downturn are greater than we first forecast when we first came into office, but we are in a good position to face those challenges. We have reduced our expenditures, we have begun to plan for aggressive infrastructure investments, and we have the resources to make significant investments in education and training of our residents. We are continuing to invest in our people, our environment, and our economy. We plan to closely monitor economic events. We plan to review our fiscal assumptions and priorities before we put specific plans together for the next fiscal year and beyond. I look forward to hearing from the Members on these critical issues as we begin our business planning for 2010-2011.