The 2014-15 Infrastructure Budget fails to meet the needs and investments in education of our youth. Youth need access to facilities and programs to help them succeed. They need a safe place to go after school and on weekends. Young adulthood offers a unique opportunity to discover where your interests and talents lay, and develop lasting skills in areas such as traditional activities, sports, arts and trades in a way we can only experience once in our lives.

Recently, I’m very proud that two young people from Fort Providence, Zachary Lesage and Alvin Minoza, took the initiative to come to my constituency office to let me know how much they

would like an area for skateboarding, a BMX track and a play zone for paintball as early as next spring or summer. We need to develop these areas for our youth and teach them the skills they need to get involved in building it for themselves.

Young people have a lot of energy that can be channeled for the good of their communities, schools, friends, families and themselves. Participating in various activities in a supportive atmosphere builds the confidence and social skills we need as people in order to build healthy relationships and achieve individual and collective goals.

Each community in the NWT should have at least one facility dedicated to youth. Everywhere you go you see a real need to have established and operating youth centres in small communities.

Schools and youth centres are so much more than buildings. When we invest in infrastructure for youth, we are contributing to some great programs that offer young Northerners opportunities like never before. When government neglects infrastructure in schools and youth centres, it shortchanges their own investments in quality programs, including youth development projects, sport and recreation programs and strategies, high performance athlete development, Youth Ambassadors, Northern Youth Abroad, youth leadership development, and components of afterschool physical activity and the Healthy Choices Framework.

Over the coming year I want to see the Government of the NWT, communities, industry and local businesses work together to enhance facilities and programs in all our communities for the benefit of the youth and the general public. I strongly support a balanced approach to investments in our capital infrastructure. We need to ask ourselves what are we teaching our young people. As we spend heavily in one area, what compromises are we willing to make in another?

Ultimately our future will be determined by the value, leadership and decisions of our youth. Mahsi.