Thank, Mr. Chairman. Once again I would like to thank the Minister for his opening comments on the bill today. I just want to talk a little bit about some of the things that we heard and some of my general thoughts.

Obviously, I am looking forward to getting into the detail as we go department by department. Going through the statement, once again as I talk about my Member’s statement, I think it is important for us to be looking at new and creative ways to gain efficiency on the dollars that we are spending and utilize our dollars in the most effective and

appropriate ways. I think, if you talk to a lot of our employees, they would like increased accountability, they would like some additional responsibility, they would like to be able to make some decisions and they would like to be able to do some of the work that they are currently managing contracts to have contractors do. I think it is certainly something that is worthy of some investigation and some looking at within the department.

I am looking forward to seeing the joint results of the review that is being done and the borrowing limit that is coming out in April. I think that is a huge, important endeavour and I look forward to seeing the results of that.

Going through the document on some of the individual areas, supporting the economy. I am happy to see some increased funding going to SEED and one of the things that I would obviously like to see done in this area is, if you look at our stats from throughout the Northwest Territories, my colleague Mr. Krutko is right, the employment rates in some of our communities are really quite awful, which is leading to increased costs in delivery on the social side. I would like to see the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment take some of these dollars, get into some of these smaller communities and work with some of the youth and even some of the adults to explore the opportunities, increased opportunities, to bring some small sustainable business opportunities to our small communities. Let’s work on getting some of these people employed.

Now, I am happy that on the next page that the Minister talked about the $925,000 that the Small Community Employment Program that is going to be invested in, and obviously that is an important initiative but it doesn’t take away from the work that Industry, Tourism and Investment with all of its experts could be doing in some of these communities to increase employment opportunities.

Under the Reducing the Cost of Living, I did listen to what the Minister said, and obviously reducing the cost of living in our communities is critical. But when I look at the types of activities that he was talking about, with the exception of the reduced power, I don’t see anything that has actually tangibly resulted in a reduction in the cost of living and, quite frankly, we are not even 100 percent sure yet that the Electricity Rate Review and the change that it made is actually going to result in cost savings and a reduced cost of living. I think we hope, and I think we expect, but we don’t actually know. We need to see some results here. The people are having difficulties with the cost of living in the communities and I think we have a responsibility to actually try to do some tangible and real activities that we can see clear results on reduced costs of living. I think the Electricity Rate

Review is great and on the right direction, but right now I am not even sure that we can say that we have fully reduced the cost of living. Hopefully soon you will be able to tell us that you have.

Throughout the discussions and throughout the bill there are a lot of studies being done, and that is great. I understand the value, I understand the importance of studies, they help us make decisions. It is important to be informed when we make decisions, but at the same time, it would be nice to see some more actions on the ground. I have seen a lot of studies go through this Assembly in the last three or three and half years and couple months, whatever the case may be, and honestly, before I was an MLA, I saw a lot of studies being done. Like I said earlier on a different topic, there are a lot of studies sitting on shelves. Do we need to keep repeating the studies, or can we please, please start implementing some of these ideas that are out there to actually impact the people on the ground? One hundred fifty thousand dollars for a study could go a long way in program delivery and helping the people that we have.

Investing in Our People. Some good initiatives here, I am happy to see and I am looking forward to discussing them more specifically. One of them that obviously jumped out at me was the $75,000 to expand territorial respite, but I think this is critical, I think this is important and I look forward to that. I understand that we probably won’t have a territorial respite program fully designed by the end of the current fiscal year and that the design will go into the next fiscal year, and later on I will be talking to the Minister about how that is going to affect some of the existing programs that have questionable futures based on the direction that the department is taking. I will save that for detail.

I have to say that under the Sustainable Communities section, I am disappointed that, quite frankly, there is only a seven word reference to NGOs and support for NGOs in the budget address, and I’m hoping that we’re going to see more detail within the budget itself, because, quite frankly, the support and strength of the voluntary sector and the NGOs is part of our strategic vision and our strategic direction, and I’m not really seeing as much progress in the support of the NGOs that I thought or hoped we would see when there seemed to be some passion for this at the beginning of the 16th Assembly. I remain frustrated and I think it’s

really unfortunate that there is only a six letter reference to supporting NGOs.

Protecting the environment. I think a lot of good things are done and I’m happy to see some of the initiatives going on. I think there’s still room we can go here. I think we need to make some real targets that aren’t just affecting the GNWT on reductions but are real and meaningful throughout the Northwest Territories.

Refocusing government. I think there’s lot of work here, lots of opportunity here, and it goes back to some of the things I was saying in my Member’s statement about, you know, our employees have some great ideas. I know we listen to them, but let’s empower them to make some hard and fast decisions and give them the opportunity and accountability to make some of those decisions and changes in the best interests of the people and them themselves.

Under the Looking Forward section there was a significant amount of talk about Foundation for Change and health and social services. One thing I have to say, and seems really missing to me, if we’re looking at the future, I’ve read statistics and research that says to have effective health promotion you need to spend about 3 percent of your budget on health promotion. In the Northwest Territories we spend barely 0.2 percent of our budget on health promotion. Oddly enough, unfortunately, health promotion seems like an easy area to cut in departments and, as a result, I don’t think we’re investing in health promotion to the degree that we need.

We need to help people live healthier lives. We need to put in programs, we need to put in initiatives to help people make choices and give them the opportunities and tools they need to make productive choices to maintain their health. It will save us a lot of money in the long run, but if we’re not investing in it, we’re not going to make any difference in health promotion. Yes, I’ve seen the initiatives the department has and there are a lot of really good initiatives on health promotion within the department. Can’t knock it; won’t knock it. I think the department should be proud of those things, but we need more. We need significantly more investment in health promotion. Yes, it’s going to be an upfront cost, but it will save us money in all other areas in the long run.

So obviously, I’m going to push and ask a lot of questions on the health promotion and why are we not asking for more money in this area. Why are we not doing some upfront work on this area to help our residents and give them the tools to be healthy and live healthy lives so that they can be successful in education, so that they can be successful in employment and business, so that they can be productive in any area they chose to be productive? It’s really unfortunate to me that so little effort is being put into prevention.

Foundation for Change. I’ve had briefings and I think there’s a lot of good work happening in Foundation for Change. I’m looking forward to details. Sometimes I’m a little bit frustrated by the lack of detail I’ve received in some of the things that are going on in the Foundation for Change, but I have received briefings and I have been kept updated, to some degree. I would like more

information on Foundation for Change. In principle, it sounds like good things are happening, but this is our biggest department, our most expensive department and, quite frankly, we’re all MLAs here and we’re all working in the best interests of the people of the Northwest Territories and I think more information would be beneficial as opposed to the opposite.

Just some general comments. I’m going to go into more detail in many areas as we move through. Like I said in my Member’s statement today, I’m happy that we stuck to our fiscal strategy, that we are under the 3 percent growth, that we have room on our borrowing limit, should unforeseen circumstances arise and we have to go there. I’m hoping we don’t have to go there. I believe $1.34 billion is a lot of money. We have a lot of work to do in the 2011-12 fiscal year and I think this is a starting point and let’s get it done. Thank you.