Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Members, as well, for their input into this motion. In this House as legislators we have a number of tasks before us. We make laws and set up programs and policies, and we administer budgets for the good of all the people. We have to take not only the short view of what’s happening around us but we have to plan, as the Member for Mackenzie Delta said, for the future.

When we started this Assembly we had a plan. We were elected into a reality, a reality where we were coming out of a very significant recession where we spent $1.1 billion in capital for over three years. At the same time, part of that was $60 million over four years, knowing as we did this that we were engaged in a process that was not sustainable in the long term, that we would deplete our cash reserves because we needed to step into the breach as the private sector struggled through the downturn.

When we came into the 17

th Assembly, we started

a plan that would see us in year one and two maintaining fiscal discipline so that in year three and four we would be able to add more money into infrastructure. We came into this Assembly with our capital budget for government diminished to $75 million. Last year Transportation’s budget during the $1.1 billion time was over $150 million itself.

In order to get to enhance the $75 million, we agreed that we would do a number of things: that we would put $1.4 billion to programs and services; that we would protect the programs and services to the people; that we would negotiate good collective agreements that would give us labour peace; and that we would look for efficiencies to add and replenish our cash reserves, because we are obligated under policy that we have – fiscal responsibility policy – to fund half of our capital by savings generated from operations. We’ve started that program and that process. We are currently $656 million in debt. Our borrowing limit is $800 million. We can easily eat up that $144 million on very many good projects, processes, programs and investments.

If we do and we do it right now and we do not manage our way through this and stick to a long-term plan, we are going to have very little flexibility to do anything going forward that would allow us to begin to address some of the other broad issues we have.

The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake commented about we have to focus on programs. We do, and we’re putting $1.4 billion in there. We know we have a health centre and a long-term care facility that’s supposed to go into Norman Wells. We know Stanton is supposed to be fixed, $200 million-plus. We have $144 million borrowing room between now and the $800 million.

We all agree that we have to make this shift, that we are in transition on the type of energy we use, minimizing our reliance on fossil fuels, and we invested $60 million, but we also have to manage within the times that we are in, the fiscal times that we are in.

Yes, I would love to be able to stand up and put more money into a number of things, into all sorts of energy projects, but we do not have the fiscal flexibility. I would love to be able to tell the Minister of Health that yes, there is money for midwifery, that we can build more treatment centres, that we can do all this and still address our projected $3 billion capital infrastructure deficit, the passionate Member for Nahendeh with Highway No. 7.

We are in the business of making choices and we are continuing a lot of the work that we started. Not to the level that we would like, but we are continuing. Public Works and Services and the territorial government are going to do all their retrofits. They’re moving on that. It’s generating savings. They’ve set up a type of revolving fund to help pay for that. We’re continuing to invest in solar. We’re continuing to invest in biomass. We’re working with a private individual that wants to set up a pellet plant in the Northwest Territories, which is the second step of our plan with biomass – build the market, build the industry. We’re on that track. We want to invest in wind. We want to continue to invest in geothermal, and we’re doing it to the level that we are able.

We will come back with an energy plan. We’ll come back with an energy plan that will tell you that yes, if we are serious about our Economic Development Strategy and our Mineral Strategy in the North and South Slave. For us to do that project, expand the Taltson by 50-some megawatts and run a transmission line to hook the North and South Slave together, the Taltson and Snare grid, three-quarters of a billion dollars. We know that, because that was the approximate cost of the project to take the transmission line all the way to the mines. But it’s a critical piece that needs to get done, so we have to figure out how we’re going to do that.

We’re going to come forward with the Solar Strategy that’s going to say we would like to make a 10 percent penetration into every thermal community to cut their costs on diesel. We’ve done it in Simpson. We know it works. The technology is there. We’re not breaking trail. There’s going to be a payback there. We’re going to diminish our

demand on diesel by 10 percent. We have to make that case.

We know we have to sort out Inuvik. Inuvik, if we just go straight gas right now, then we’d be writing a cheque for $50 million to $80 million. Where in all these main estimates in this document are we going to find that kind of money?

Our decision here is to make a number of choices. In this case, in energy, we’re making investments. We’re going to continue to make investments. We’re going to come back with the plan that will allow us, if we maintain fiscal discipline and if we agree we need partners on the big projects, to go forward in year three and four. If we rush to spend our way through the borrowing limit that we do have, I am telling you right now that we will have no flexibility left for the last couple years of this government. We have to make choices and we have to stay on target. We can do this, but we can’t do it all in the first budget. I’m asking here for people to consider that and remember that.

We started this process on that understanding, and we are fully and deeply committed to trying to save the money we need to put a few dollars extra into infrastructure. When you balance programs and services, money versus capital, there’s a huge difference: $1.4 billion on programs and services. We’re having a $75 million capital budget for 42,000 people to try to erode and eat away at a projected $3 billion deficit. We have to be able to say collectively there are many things we want to do. We are going to do just about all of them, but how fast can we do them?

I’m asking today, in the enthusiasm of the moment of everybody standing up to say let’s spend that money, let’s take it away from the $144 million. Let’s knock that $144 million down for this motion, and are there others coming? I have no idea. Let’s knock that $144 million down to $130 million, $120 million, $100 million, and in year one, by the end of two weeks, where will we be? We will be hamstrung. Then the choice left to us for any flexibility is going to be what we’re working so hard to avoid, which is program cuts and layoffs.

As we look across the land, let’s pick a country. Let’s pick Spain today, teetering on the brink of insolvency. Look at the provinces around us. We’ve managed our way through this to avoid those types of circumstances by being careful, by collectively managing our way through difficult circumstances and recognizing that we have to make choices.

Today this motion is well intentioned and it speaks to what we all want to do. We just have to pace it properly, sequence it properly, lay it out properly so we can deal with this issue. At the same time, the myriad of other issues that are going to come before us in a way that is going to allow us as the 17

th Assembly to put our fiscal house in order,

address a lot of issues, so that when we hand off

the torch to the 18

th Assembly, we’re going to hand

off the government in better shape, hopefully, than when we found it.

This is a recommendation to Cabinet, so we will be abstaining, but rest assured, we’re listening carefully. We will come back in about five months with a broader plan on energy, but today I just ask everybody to just keep the context of what got us here, how we started our journey and the decisions that we have to make along the way so that we don’t get caught up in the excitement of the moment and forget those broad pieces, because they are critical. We share the same goals; we just have to figure out collectively how we get there in a sustainable way. Thank you.