Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the committee allowing me to make some general comments with regard to the budget.

First off, the whole budget process has proved quite interesting how it works. We heard some very strong comments yesterday by some of the Members on this side of the House. It got me thinking last night, when I was leaving the Assembly, that it is quite interesting how we get to this process in terms of budgeting. At one point during the fiscal year, we do see the budget ahead of us and we look at it, we break it down and give recommendations and it comes back to us. What gets me is how this budget ever gets to us from what Members have said in previous years. I know there are some new Members in this Assembly, but there are Members in this Assembly that have been here two, three, four, going on to their fifth years but yet things they have fought for have never gotten into the budget year after year. Yet, they continue to fight for them and I give them the respect and acknowledgement that they fight and can continue

year after year. That is a pretty frustrating process to try to get what they need into the budget plan for their constituents.

I have been through that process two years myself, Madam Chair. I do feel when we do get a budget in front of us such as this, when I have had colleagues on this side of the House in their second and third terms that are frustrated not seeing whether this budget is going forward, but at the same time, as a new Member, I see where the fiscal responsibility comes in and how we have to be prudent where we spend the dollars.

It was a night of thinking on the whole budget and government operations and focusing on the Northwest Territories. You heard a lot here yesterday on how we have to provide services, roads, transportation, health centres and schools for the people of the Northwest Territories. You know, it is kind of a crazy thought thrown out there if you spent more time travelling in the Northwest Territories and doing more surveys and inspecting our schools and health centres and seeing what people in the Northwest Territories need, rather than going out and then trying to find out…maybe getting investments or creating partnerships that in years and years to come might not even show.

I mean, there was an article on CBC the other day that said the mining economy is going to be low for the next year or so, and that all three northern territories are going to have to, I won’t say take it on the chin, but we expect the economy is not going to be as high. So in circumstances like that, I think we should start looking at how we as a government can start looking at our own territory and start looking at how we can be self-sustaining, rather than always worrying about big industry coming in and saving us.

I know that the Premier and Cabinet have been doing a good job with the Canada Building Fund, working on trying to get some infrastructure with the federal government. But just thinking outside the box, as was said around the table a couple of times, just focus on our territory more and get our territory up and running.

There was an article in a newspaper – it might have been the Yellowknifer or on CBC North – about increasing our debt wall again by our Finance Minister, I believe. That was never spoken to. To read that, it was quite interesting. We now have an opportunity, with two years left, to start focusing on people in the Northwest Territories and our communities that the people live in.

We’re talking about devolution and we have to talk about getting our communities prepared for lease spacing for offices and for housing.

In terms of the budgeting process, I was really interested. I’m just going to take the operations budget, for example. I know we are on general

comments, but the operations budget came before committee last year. We looked at it and we said no, we have to start investing in our people, prevention and promotion, early childhood development, treatment facilities. We put pressure on Housing. Housing did a good job with coming back. Education, income assistance. If we just approved that budget the way it was before us, where would the government be?

We have a good opportunity moving forward here. I don’t know who puts the budget together and brings it to us as legislators, but it is a concern and I believe Members on this side of the House have been doing a good job. I work with these guys every day that I’m here in Yellowknife and I know they do their reading. We have really concrete and detailed discussions in our committee meetings, and I do respect the Members who have been bringing up a lot of their constituency concerns. Not only constituency concerns, we have the Inuvik-Tuk highway and we did get a lot of support on this side of the House for that. I know there were some people who weren’t in favour of it, but at the end of the day, those discussions are laid out in committee rooms when we have a big project. Coming from a person who’s a new Member and somebody who has worked on many committees that did a lot of good work, I support all Members here who have been here in the past, moving forward with their projects. I know when they speak up in this House asking for something, that it’s legit and that we need to look at creating that.

Anyway, that was my budget talk and how budgets work in this government. I just wanted to get it off my chest, because last night I thought long and hard about it and I was just kind of bewildered on how the whole process works out and who brings the budget to us and moving it forward.

With the particular budget in front of us, you’ve heard a lot of people talking about a lot of different things yesterday. I’m not going to try to repeat any of it, but if I was going to repeat one thing, it would be the deferred maintenance. I think that’s one of the biggest issues we have in this government and it needs to be addressed.

In terms of the Inuvik and Beaufort-Delta side of things, I’m glad to see the fibre optic link is still proceeding. The Inuvik-Tuk highway, I know there was some discussion that was thrown out there, to try to make the project a little bit longer. Take some dollars out of the year and put into infrastructure. Coming from Inuvik and seeing the gas situation that I have, I won’t be able to support that. We need to get that project done on time, only because there are some wells that fall along that route that Inuvik and Tuk can tap into to get to a gas well and provide both communities with cheaper fuel costs. We need to get that infrastructure built in time so we can try and tap into that.

Another one, in speaking about highways, that’s just coming up with a plan for all highways in the highway system. I’d like to see where the update is on the Arctic Tern facility. With the new school, I know the new school was a big project of the last governments in Inuvik. But there were some minor things that had happened and one of them was with the dental office. Last year there were no students who got any dental work done because the dental therapist couldn’t do the work in the area, and the same thing is happening this year. So if there’s any way we could alter that dental office in the school so students are able to get the dental work done that they need. As government here knows, oral health care in the NWT is very high and very needed, and you’ve already lost out on the year with some of the students in Inuvik. It provides services to kindergarten to Grade 6 and that needs to be addressed.

I’d just like to thank Members for allowing me to vent a little bit about the budget process and also talk about some of the things that are going well, but also some of the things that also need to be addressed there.

I respect everybody that brings their concerns to the floor year after year after year, and hopefully we get to see some changes. Thank you, Madam Chair.