Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement today is a continuation of my budget comments from yesterday and it’s about a subject that I’ve spoken of many times before.
As I listened to the budget address last week, I was hoping to hear the Minister of Finance announce a new revenue source in our budget, but I was disappointed yet again. There is no reference to a new revenue stream in the 2013-14 operations budget. In fact, out of a 10-page budget address, only one small paragraph is devoted to revenue.
Our next year’s budget is pretty much a carbon copy of the current budget. Yet, Mr. Speaker, our needs are great. There are so many things we want and need to do as a government and as a territory to enhance the life for our residents. Things like a bigger Midwifery Program, comprehensive early childhood programs, more energy initiatives, maintaining the Dene Ko Day Shelter, increased education programs and services, upgraded highways, and replacing old infrastructure, our schools, our government buildings and the like.
The list is too long to mention everything. The bottom line is we need to increase our revenues in order to put in place all the things that we believe our territory needs.
The Finance Minister has explained this is a stay the course budget with few initiatives. So why not increase our revenue to give us financial breathing room?
There are opportunities for new revenue sources. Many have been explored by the Finance Minister and then rejected, and that is wrong, in my view. I know we’re limited to certain revenue sources because of the Territorial Financing Formula and the potential clawbacks of our own-source revenues. But to refuse to implement any significant new revenue source is short sighted.
Since the start of the 17
th Assembly, any time the
need for revenue is raised, the Minister of Finance or the Premier refer to devolution and the presumed financial windfall that we will inherit. Minister Miltenberger did so yesterday during Committee of the Whole. Resource royalties negotiated through devolution cannot be seen as our financial salvation. We have to be more forward thinking than that.
We, the Assembly and our residents, want autonomy. We want control over our territory. I do too. Part of that autonomy demands prudent planning and long-term thinking, and both of those require a recognition that we need to put in place a significant new revenue source to move this territory forward. I urge the government to reconsider their position for our next budget. Thank you.
