Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for allowing us to have some opening comments
here on this budget address. I guess first and foremost one of the questions I’ll have for the Minister is he’s obviously breaking tradition by not buying a new pair of shoes today and have him answer that question as to why not. Obviously, I know there’s a custom involved with this.
I’m going to be kind of going not in any type of order per se in terms of priority, but obviously just kind of making some overall comments as things unfold here.
One of the things I know the budget seemed to have lacked or is lacking is in the prevention and promotion, especially in the health care area the budget does not mention in terms of a large increase. This is a concern, obviously, for Members of the Social Programs committee. We are definitely going to be talking more about it as we do the line entries for that.
Again, in the same breath, addictions is obviously one of the focal points of major concern for many Members on this side of the House, and solutions with the addictions programs throughout the Northwest Territories, whether it’s bricks and mortar, facilities or program development, requires obviously a lot of funding, and I didn’t see a lot in this budget and maybe I can get some comments to come back as well.
Given the fact we’ve got some pretty large-scale capital projects, one being completed and one potentially in the hopper, the Deh Cho Bridge, I was very surprised that not very much mention, if at all mentioned here as we complete the final stages of this large-scale project in terms of any potential future costs to this House, and whether or not we can earmark a potential opening of this infrastructure in this fiscal year. I’m hoping to get some… I guess Members here probably could hear a little bit more about that because it was not addressed.
The second part of that question in terms of capital budgets, obviously, is there was mention of the Inuvik-Tuk highway and again there’s still some grave concern of the affordability of this project given the current relationship. We know that we’ve got the federal partners on our side and that is a good, sure sign of a success, but given the complexity of this bridge, given the fact that we’re still unaware of the true cost of this bridge, or sorry, this road to Inuvik-Tuk, I’m still gravely concerned of the affordability of this, especially with our new-minted borrowing limit, which could put a lot of extra pressure over the years and so much so that as a concern if we are going to be tying into that money a lot of this is probably over a period of three to five years and it just so happens that will probably be at the downward cycle of some of our diamond industry sectors. So, again, we’re going to be having a large scale of payments just at the same time as our diamond sector is – unless something
changes dramatically – going to be on the downturn.
With that, my next question, again it was mentioned in the budget, obviously recognizing grave concerns in our energy costs for especially the town of Inuvik and Norman Wells. I’ll let the Members themselves divvy up a little bit more for their respective areas, but my concern is that in this budget we’re talking about throwing some monies to help face the imminent depletion of some of the natural gas problems that are facing these two communities and yet we know that there is other monies that are being, I guess, divvied up in various other fashions and not really part of this budget, but indirectly part of this budget. As a concerned MLA, I’m concerned about the fragmentation and the polarization of splitting these monies up into smaller projects when really is there the opportunity to look at a business case for this government to look at getting into the gas business themselves as a separate entity to our Power Corp. If we’re going to be putting money towards these fragmented programs, let’s look at the bigger picture and see if we can actually make gas part of our priority and part of our opportunity to actually have an export item that we control. Novel in nature, but I can tell you that if you’re throwing and segmenting millions of dollars here, here and here, here’s an opportunity for a business case for this government to show lead example and being prudent in a business sense.
Keeping in mind the aspects of the Auditor General, the Auditor General has made various recommendations to this House over a large number of different areas. A lot of them are with respect to reporting measures. These are dashboard indicators of the performance of this government and I can assure you that the Auditor General has mentioned that many times and not just in the most recent reports but a lot of the reports over the last couple of years. Again, as a Member, I’m still shocked to see that reporting measures aren’t being emphasized enough from this government in terms of proving to the taxpayers and to the Members here that we’re being very prudent with our spending. So, as a Member, I would like to see more of these reporting measures being part of the overall government initiatives.
Devolution and with the same token of decentralization. Again, these are very high level but obviously very important matters before the House, before Members themselves. Jobs are by far one of the most important indicators of a healthy economy. I can assure you that I support my Members from rural and remote communities that the decentralization of jobs due to devolution as we come closer to the term is going to be one in which we are going to be very importantly looking at and I do support them. Yet I notice in the opening
address here that we do not see a lot about the decentralization and the devolution jobs that are being created. I’d like to have some reassurances that we are looking at our small communities to make sure as we are developing these new jobs that there is a firm commitment from this government that all new jobs involving devolution will be decentralized appropriately in the right nested units so that small communities will benefit from these newly created jobs.
Last but not least, obviously brought up in Members’ statements today here but one that I think deserves some merit. Again, the Minister indicated that we didn’t want to put borrowed money into this, which I’m referring to as our Heritage Fund, but I can assure you that the Members on this side of the House strongly feel that if we do not start something soon with this Heritage Fund, then really this thing is going to get just shelved with nothing more than dust being accumulated. Yes, we know that potential devolution dollars can be put in this at a point of time through the revenue resource sharing agreements that hopefully come on line soon, but that said, putting at least an attempt thereof is something which I think this government should show positive signs for the people of the Northwest Territories that they are indeed looking at our future.
I’ll leave it at that. I’m sure my colleagues will have further comments as well.