Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments, and they’re not in any particular order. I mentioned some of them in my statement today. I want to say off the top to the Minister and to the House, and I mentioned it in my statement, that I support and I did support and I do support the fiscal strategy that we have put in place, at least for the first two years and presumably for the next two years as we finish this Assembly.

I mentioned the electricity subsidy in my statement, so I don’t need to mention it again. But we need to look ahead to what we’re going to do when we come to the end of the rate increases and we can no longer continue putting money into electricity rates. I haven’t yet understood quite what we’re going to do when we come to the end of rising rates and there’s no subsidy.

One of the things that I am disappointed about that isn’t mentioned in the budget, that the 16th Assembly spent a great deal of time on, and that’s the Child and Family Services Act review. There

were 75-some recommendations in that report. There was a commitment to child and family service committees in, I think, one or two budgets ago. I don’t see any reference to that in this particular budget. I also don’t see any reference to implementing any of the recommendations in the Child and Family Services Act review, particularly legislation which was recommended. There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that any changes are coming forward any time soon.

I am disappointed that there’s no new revenue source in this budget, and I’ll speak a little bit more about that tomorrow.

The midwifery expansion I’m very pleased to see there, but I think the way the money is earmarked is not the right way to go. I think we ought to be putting the money into actual midwives on the ground as opposed to putting it into headquarters for planning.

The Minister of Health and Social Services confirmed to me the other day that we will have money in the budget for the day shelter here in Yellowknife. That’s very good news. It’s a very positive program. Were it to stop, I think it would be felt by both businesses and residents of Yellowknife but also by residents in other communities because, as I mentioned in my statement, many of the people using that shelter are not from Yellowknife.

The energy initiatives that are mentioned in the budget, some of them I have great difficulty with. I don’t think they’re initiatives. I think they’re more activities as opposed to initiatives. I regret that we are not in this Assembly taking the same approach to electricity initiatives that we did in the 16th , which

was $60 million over a four-year period. There’s some $5 million identified by the Minister in this budget for electricity initiatives, but some of them, I think it was pointed out by Mr. Bromley, was to put high-efficiency boilers into public housing. I hardly see that as an energy initiative.

In terms of mental health and addictions, there are many concerns here. There should be a focus on prevention and promotion, and the government says there is. I don’t believe that the activities that have been identified in the budget as prevention and promotion are adequately labelled, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it. I think many of the activities that the government says are prevention and promotion are not. I think they’ve just sort of put them into this list and labelled them as that in order to make things look good, so to speak.

There is no mention of a treatment centre. There is a mention of detox beds, but there’s no mention of a treatment centre. I believe the Minister of Health has referenced an analysis of Nats’ejee K’eh, but there needs to be a treatment centre in the largest city in our territory.

I am somewhat disappointed and concerned, I guess, that there’s no mention in terms of funding to replace the declining federal funding for housing. CMHC funding is declining continually. We’ve heard discussions over the last year or so that there is a plan for that. I don’t see any mention of that in the budget, and that is a huge concern. Housing is a really big issue for us, and how we are going to continue to fund our public housing over the next 10 years is largely unknown at this point.

Another thing that is not mentioned in the budget – I should say it is mentioned. The Family Violence Action Plan is mentioned, but it’s a continuation of funding from the previous year. The Family Violence Action Plan has many, many recommendations which have not yet been instituted. I don’t see any new money in the budget for advancing the Family Violence Action Plan activities.

The Minister mentioned that we have to focus on increasing employment opportunities. I had to wonder how. I don’t know what he means by that. Yes, we need to increase our employment opportunities, but it’s my understanding that a program which was initiated not so long ago, the Small Community Employment Program, it’s my understanding that that program is not going to be continuing in the next budget year. I really wonder how we’re going to increase employment opportunities if we’re taking a known program off the books.

I mentioned in my statement the early childhood development. The funding that’s being put into that is really a good-news story. I cannot stress enough that if we put money into zero to three, zero to four, preschool-aged children and families that it will have a huge impact on all of our residents, and over time, another 10 or 20 years, we will see great advances and very positive advances in how we are as a people. It will have an impact on our spending and it will reduce our spending for income support or many of our programs and services. We need to continue that focus on early childhood development.

Lastly, I mentioned in my statement, as well, the Anti-Poverty Strategy. I’m really glad that’s coming to fruition. I look forward to seeing the report that’s coming in a few months’ time. I am particularly pleased that there seems to be a bit of a change in government thinking, and in the thinking of Ministers from departmental silos and everybody out for their own to recognizing that, in order to make advances for us as a territory and for our people, we have to involve all departments when we do certain things. The early childhood development was one. There was a discussion, as well, about the Anti-Poverty Strategy and how much it relies on all departments working together. I was pleased to see that in the budget.

So that’s it, Mr. Chair. I don’t have any other comments at this point. I will have questions for the various Ministers when we come to it. Thank you.