Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was reading the budget and the highlights over the weekend. I made a comment in one of my meetings that it’s not a bad budget, and then I woke up.
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Mr. Chair, I want to say that when I looked at the budget and looked at it from the perspective of the communities and from the Sahtu region, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen in budget history that the budget is going to be shared with the Aboriginal governments. In all my time with the Legislative Assembly I have never seen that. There’s a significant amount of money going to the Aboriginal governments. For me that’s history making. That’s something I have never seen. The Aboriginal governments will be receiving their 25 percent of the net fiscal benefits and they’ll be sharing a budget with us. I have never seen that before, that amount of money and commitment. That’s history making in any type of government in Canada with that kind of money going to our partners in the Aboriginal governments. I thought that was good news to see that.
The other part of the wake-up call for me was that the communities now in the North will be receiving, and how long they’ve been at these on-the-land healing programs, it’s the first time it’s showing up in the budget. You have committed dollars going to specific on-the-land healing programs and it’s the implementation of these programs that are going to make it so. I haven’t seen that over the years that I’ve spoken on it. Other Members in this government and the last government spoke on the on-the-land healing programs that are going to be now in our system. I’m hoping for the implementation, and that’s what the people have been asking for.
I just received the wellness plans for the Sahtu communities, and people have aspirations, they have hope in implementing these wellness plans. I’ve received a report from the RCMP, monthly reports on what they’re doing in the Sahtu communities, and still the number one factor for our people that we’re still wrestling with has to do with the amount of alcohol that’s being used.
Our communities have a high percentage of residential school survivors who are still asking for help, and these survivors are certainly looking for some help from this government providing these programs for our communities.
Over the years, sometimes we are speaking and our words don’t feel like they’re being heard or it takes a long time in government to move the system. For myself, I’m saying yes, it’s not a bad budget. It’s something that I could live with, and
certainly that the investment around the hydro, in one of the statements on the transmission grid between the North Slave and the South Slave hydro system and the Canadian grid, I need to ask some questions on what it will cost to build this business plan. I heard some astronomically high numbers as to what, if we went ahead with it, would be the payback, while our communities such as Norman Wells or Inuvik are dealing with the high costs of energy there, especially with Norman Wells. This summer, 2014, the natural gas will be turned off to that town and there are families there that are stressed right out. They’re asking for help with the conversion. They just don’t have 10, 15, 20 thousand dollars in their pockets to pay for the conversion. I know there are plans in there to how do we help them out. I haven’t heard yet. I heard from the Minister earlier as to what gaps need to be looked at, what gaps need to be filled, but we certainly, in our small communities, are looking for help from this government.
When I look through the profiles of the Sahtu communities and we look at communities where the unemployment rate is quite high in our small communities. one example in my communities is only 38 percent are working. That causes me a lot of concern. Or there is the potential of 47 graduates in the Sahtu this year, 50 next year and 59 the year after. That causes me some concern. What type of career are we setting up for them in our communities? What’s the record to track these students? We have the Minister or the government saying there are 47 graduates this year. What do we have planned for them? Aurora College and the three campuses or post-secondary or work, job-related skills? Where are we going to find work for them, because there’s only so much work in our small communities and people are going to hang on to their jobs. They need those jobs. I’m looking at the future for them.
I’m very happy that there’s housing going into our communities and there are different avenues how to get this housing. There are a lot of people who own their homes. I’m looking at what sort of programs and services could help our people. When I look at the budget and I compare what we have now in our communities, I’m saying, well, how do we match that, that unemployment, the skill, the employment, the housing, the economics?
A lot of people depend on the land in the Sahtu. They depend quite heavily on the food. For example, in Deline 77 percent consume the traditional foods from the land, so how do we strengthen and continue to increase that number? A lot of people want to go on the land and hunt caribou and take fish from Great Bear Lake. When you’re looking at government, how do we support each other?
I, like Ms. Bisaro, have other concerns. I might have to ask to get back on the list so we can go through the detail. I wanted to say that with all the funds and some of the uncertainty that we have, this budget is being presented to us to hold the government accountable for the next five weeks. Certainly, I heard earlier on the vacancy of jobs in our government. We are going to have some discussions on the Heritage Fund. When I look at the profiles of each of my Sahtu communities and I look at the budget, when there’s 19 of us that have our fingers in this budget, is it enough for me, is it enough for the rest of the Members? Well, we’re going to have that debate for the next five weeks. I want to say that our people are looking forward to how do we continue to address some of our critical needs in our smaller communities. I will probably ask more questions in detail. Thank you.