Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that the government should have this Heritage Act, as I see it, like a savings account but only use this fund or put money into this fund when all of the communities have what is required for them to function as a community.
Right now I have mixed feelings about a fund such as the Heritage Fund, a fund such as this, when we know that there are still communities in the Northwest Territories that don’t have basic essentials. The basic essentials that are afforded to larger communities in the Northwest Territories, that’s not a problem. They can save, put money aside and put it away for the future. However, for us MLAs that represent small communities, we don’t have the basic essentials needed in small communities. We don’t have youth centres for all of the communities for the youth. I have many youth in Lutselk'e and there is no youth centre there. They’re looking at using old buildings here and there that would be handed them by the government. We don’t have youth workers. We need people, youth officers and so on in these communities. We don’t have environment officers in the communities that could go there and work in the communities to protect the land. We don’t have our land cleaned up from past explorations and so on.
It’s a very tough act for me to support. I think it’s a good idea if the government is not running a deficit, if the government is not approaching the debt wall, and if the government doesn’t have to borrow
money to increase the debt wall in order to provide infrastructure. Those are good ideas. This I see as kind of like saving money on one hand while you have people that are hungry on the other hand, and that’s the reality here. Instead of putting $10 million into a Heritage Fund, why not put $10 million into creating employment in small communities so that people don’t have to go back to the government and ask the government for support to fix a doorknob or change their window or have to always rely on the government to provide income? They should be able to take the same money and put it into those programs or put it into something, because we need help now, not 20 years from now.
Small communities are finally getting an opportunity to turn around and get some of the things that are needed like having highways into our communities that are chipsealed, good highways into the community that lower the costs and a highway, not when you’re leaving your community because you have to go to the neighbouring larger community to buy groceries to keep your grocery bill down, but you beat your car up. Communities that have no access. Communities that have only barge access. Communities that have winter road access only and the only opportunity to lower costs is driving out on winter roads and so on. Then, when all of those things are dealt with, then we should think about saving money.
But right now this is a hard bill for me as I represent the people of Tu Nedhe. It’s a difficult bill for me to go to even the youth of Lutselk'e, the youth in Fort Resolution and say this government doesn’t have any money to be able to provide a good, qualified youth worker that could help you in your future and so on, but at the same time we’re going to save and put some money away, like, millions of dollars away that could be used immediately in small communities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.