Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn’t going to make general comments, but after hearing my colleague from Yellowknife Centre, I guess I do need to talk about the budget here a little bit.
Yellowknife only got mentioned once in the budget address? Like please. This government has got to look outside of Yellowknife. I mean, Yellowknife might as well be on a different planet when you get out into the other communities. It’s not even in the same league, and how for these few jobs that are being decentralized after, for my case, 18 years of begging in this House? I know beggars can’t be choosers, but we are definitely beggars when it comes to getting government jobs.
Finally, this government and this Cabinet have responded with a few jobs for communities outside and we have to worry about whether we are being sensitive to the employees that are being moved.
We live in Hay River. We live in Fort Smith. We live in Norman Wells. We live in Fort Simpson. There’s nothing wrong with these communities. Whether there will be infrastructure, the minute the word goes out in a community like Hay River that there is potential for needing privately invested office space or infrastructure, whatever is needed, it’s just that nobody can afford to build it on speculation and hope that maybe something is going to come there.
We can’t build it and let it sit there empty while the government decides if they are going to send something. But there would be lots of capacity, I would suggest, in communities outside of Yellowknife, and particularly if there was a little bit of heads-up and a little bit of notice that there was some economy coming.
It’s not good out there. I come to Yellowknife after being back in Hay River for a few weeks. I’m driving down Old Airport Road and there are new buildings that have sprung up while I was gone over the summer. It’s great for Yellowknife. Is there anything wrong with Yellowknife? Absolutely not. We should just all move to Yellowknife; that would solve the big problem, wouldn’t it? We aren’t going to do that. We want to have viable, sustainable communities outside of the centre.
I am very happy that this government has finally seen fit to move a few jobs. Yes, the government continues to grow. I am sorry; I guess I am to the right when it comes to fiscally conservative. I don’t want to see government grow for the sake of growing. I don’t want to see the government and the public service growing on itself. Industry will decide where they want to go.
We don’t have a lot of control over that as a government, but where we do have control over government offices that can be away from exactly where the programs and services are delivered, we have an obligation as a government to be fair and live up to our stated commitment for sustainable and viable communities across the Northwest Territories wherever that’s possible. I personally would support that going out to… One or two jobs in some of our smaller communities would be a big thing.
In Hay River, on the few that we are getting is a big thing. There is so much buzz in Hay River about these few jobs, decentralization, these new positions, our phones were ringing off the hook after the budget address. What is Hay River getting?
In Inuvik I know it’s the same thing. Times are not great there. We struck a program review office here to look at government programs. The big prize finding that came out of it is that we should build a $40 million office building in Yellowknife downtown to relieve the pent up demand -- I just love that term -- that pent up demand for office space and infrastructure in downtown Yellowknife. Of course, I know the argument will all come back that it was to save money and everything, but it just put more infrastructure into the centre. We know devolution is coming. We have to be prepared for that.
I am happy with what we have. Thank you to the government. It is a start. As it was described to us, it’s the beginning. It is the easier things to identify. But our Cabinet represents the whole territory. I do thank them for finally seeing the plight of some of
these communities outside. It’s quiet. It’s quiet in Inuvik. It’s quiet in Hay River. It’s quiet in Fort Smith. We can’t make industry appear with jobs. But where our government can make sensible, efficient, effective, viable transfer of positions and programs and services, I think we need to do it. But like I said, I’ve been preaching that for a long time. I am really excited that finally there are a few things happening. It has a ways to go; it is a beginning.
I just had to respond to my colleague from Yellowknife Centre. It is great that Yellowknife is doing as well as it is, but we have to be fair and we have to look beyond.
I don’t even know what else I had to say about the budget. We will get through it in great detail in the days, the five weeks that lie ahead.
Just back to the point, though, for a moment about being fiscally conservative and not getting ourselves as a jurisdiction into difficult financial times, as the Finance Minister alluded to earlier. I still think there is lots of room within the money that we do have and the way we do spend money, to spend it more wisely, to spend it smarter. That’s, I think, where we have to focus a lot of attention, because it isn’t like for a jurisdiction of 42,000 or 43,000 people and we don’t have a fair amount of financial resources. We do. But to get the most results from those financial resources, I still think there is a lot we can be looking at. We have the room. We have the capacity to look at how we do spend our money and to respond to needs with the right kind of spending. With that, I thank you, Mr. Chairman.