Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our territory has experienced very limited economic growth in recent years and our maturing diamond mines have reached their end of life cycle. Coupled with the decline in mining, oil and gas exploration, we have seen the NWT decline in investment

spending in the last six years. In fact, since our peak of investment spending in 2007, we are down by 27 percent. As a result, our NWT gross domestic product, that is our GDP, has fallen to pre-2002 numbers.

Another way to look at this decline is to look at our mineral exploration, which has fallen from 6.8 percent of the total Canadian mining output in 2007 to a whopping low of 2.2 percent in 2011, and we are only slated to be at 3.3 percent of the Canadian total this year. In the end, it’s abundantly clear, the NWT has been slower to recover than all three northern territories and we should ask ourselves why.

The public has been led to believe the new Mineral Development Strategy and a new Economic Development Strategy are expected to ensure sustainable growth and balanced benefits across the NWT, yet we are left to imagine on how this will happen. Strategies don’t secure success, but targeting investing does. So I ask, even with yesterday’s tabling of the Mineral Development Strategy Implementation Plan, where are these strategic and meaningful investments in the current budget. I can assure the residents of the NWT, there are very few.

The current budget reflects very little in new spending in support of ensuring our economic freedom, to promote NWT as a place of business, to create jobs and, of course, prosperity. In fact, the oversubscribed Mining Incentive Program, which was touted yesterday as being overwhelmingly popular, is in reality the only economic stimulus of sort this government has done for some time.

Ironically, Cabinet’s claim of wanting to implement even more to achieve this Assembly’s vision of a prosperous territory is plagued with a huge problem. The issue – and if you’re not aware by now – is that we are riddled with debt, both short-term and long-term, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Clearly, spending ourselves into a corner with an out-of-date fiscal and macroeconomic policy is in no way garnishing our vision of a prosperous economic territory. In fact, it’s doing the exact opposite.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted