Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to provide a few comments on Bill 10, the Heritage Act.
When I was first elected in 2003 it was one of the first issues I raised back eight years ago and I’m glad to finally see it move forward in a bill. I’m going to support Bill 10 moving forward. I think it is a move in the right direction, but it falls short of where, you know, when I envisioned a Heritage Act or a Heritage Fund, it would be more closely modeled on the permanent fund in the State of Alaska that pays a yearly dividend to each and every resident in the State of Alaska.
The Northwest Territories is a resource-rich territory. I think with devolution on the horizon we will be seeing much more in the area of resource royalties. If those are put in the right places, I think 20 or 30 years from now there’s no reason why the Northwest Territories with a small population couldn’t be looking at paying a dividend to each and every resident in the Northwest Territories to help offset the high cost of living here. I think for me that was one of the most important things, was that the money would go back to the people because really it does belong to the people. Of course, limiting
government’s availing themselves of money to do with what they want, that was an important thing to try to mitigate that whenever we could.
So, again, I just wanted to put that on the record. I do support this bill and I’m glad to see that at least something is finally moving forward so we can get into a savings of some type. Although it seems a bit odd, given our financial status today, I can see a day when we might be able to actually put some money aside, when and if devolution is ever finally negotiated. That’s probably three or four years away before we hammer out a final agreement with the feds, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank the Standing Committee on Gov Ops, too, for the work that they’ve put into this. Thanks.