Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to use this opportunity to thank Minister Miltenberger for his fifth budget to lead the territory. Mr. Miltenberger brings forward a steady as she goes budget and that’s typically the way he runs the ship: pretty straightforward, not that fancy. When I hear a strategy about two years of belt tightening and then two years of spending, I liken it more like he’s going to be the Grinch for two years and then, hopefully, be Santa for two more years after that.

The primary concern I heard that I think resonates deeply amongst many Members, of course, is revenue growth is slow. An important strategy needs to be developed here on how we want to change the ship on this measure. We need more made-in-the-NWT philosophies, roll-outs, whether

it’s manufacturing, whether it’s more innovation, or things that further build upon those ideas. We need more homegrown solutions to many of our revenue problems.

What I also saw lacking but not necessarily glaring, I’ll say that, is this committee on our side of the House that is, had great support for midwifery and I feel saddened that it didn’t meet the challenges we tried to put out to you.

Tourism, in the same vein, received significant support, if not buttressed by great enthusiasm from all Members where we wanted way more than what was given here today. The industry has been suffering for many, many years and it needs the further investment to help do the things it needs to do to get new money injected into our territorial economy. Oddly enough, that goes right back to one of my first statements, which is it’s highlighted that revenue growth is slow. How do we do that? We help foster, develop and build small businesses such as our tourism industry.

There were some interesting things highlighted in this budget. I want to thank him for that, although I wish there were more details. He talked about the medical travel costs. Forever that’s always been a target that we never know what we’re really dealing with, whether that budget is high or that budget is low. I do applaud him for highlighting it because it’s one of these quagmire numbers we can’t really get a handle on, but it always seems to be there weighing us down.

Eighteen decentralized positions I have to admit to some degree is news to me. We had some talk about the philosophy of this, but I’d have to say at this point, from a Yellowknife perspective, it is news to me, and I’ll assure you it’s news to many Members here.

That said, I exercise caution as we move forward and I do insist there will be great discussion as the days go forward.