Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know my colleagues have said a lot in a whole bunch of different areas within the departments. One with the cost of living in the Northwest Territories is continuing to get higher. As we see a slow econo
my, it’s really affecting a lot of our
communities, more in particular the Sahtu, up in our region, the Beaufort-Delta. I guess, you know, the one benefit is when we do create a lot of these infrastructure projects, especially the bigger ticket items, that it is creating jobs, it is creating a skilled workforce in the communities and throughout the Northwest Territories, so there is a benefit there and I know that there is a concern that this government is the main employer for the Northwest Territories and it does reflect in our budgets moving forward. But as the Minister stated earlier today in his statement, this is something that we can’t continue to sustain, we’ve got to find other ways to create that kind of revenue and get our people working. So I won
’t really get into the cost of living
but, you know, there are some opportunities for home and business owners to look at getting some infrastructure incentives to lower their cost of living.
I’m glad to see in this budget the continuation of the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link and seeing all the benefits from that and it’ll be great when that comes to more of a reality when it’s all finished and it’s up and running.
The same with the Inuvik-Tuk Highway. I know there have been a lot of concerns and discussions here in the House recently.
I think we’re certainly
going to see the benefits of that construction going on and I know there are some difficulties with the weather and unforeseen little delays in the project, but one thing that I think the government did a good job on is creating that oversight and getting the project manager on board perhaps a little bit sooner than later would have been a little bit more beneficial to the whole project in itself in getting things done and some of the oversights in the environmental side of things. But that’s one project, like I said earlier, that when we invest in some of these infrastructure projects it does benefit the territory and benefit people, especially up in the Beaufort-Delta and for future projects and other resource development.
Continuing on, I know there were two other kinds of projects in the community of Inuvik. One is that airport road from the airport into the community. I think this is the worst that I’ve ever seen it in all the years that I’ve driven it and have been driving it more lately than I usually do getting out to the airport. We had an accident on that road this past summer. It was an unfortunate accident, and before it gets any worse I think we need to create a bigger investment. I know they were talking about chipsealing it, and I know that when you chipseal it you have to continue to do the work over and over rather than putting that one big-time investment in
to try to get it done in a proper way so we wouldn’t have to continue to do the maintenance on it but, once again, with the permafrost and all those other issues. But I know that road has been in the worst condition that I’ve ever seen it in. I do know the airport facility is also on the books and that we’ve also got funding going
into the runway, so I’m
looking forward to seeing that study and how this government can support both the runway and the facility.
I guess another area of concern was just in terms of education. One good benefit was the note on the planning studies for the Yellowknife schools. I know that’s been a big concern for Members here in Yellowknife. I was glad to see that the dollars were being contributed to that. But other areas, we just came out with the feasibility study for early childhood development and the benefits of investing early on in life and what it will do for the government in so many different areas and possibly looking at seeing how we can create daycares in the communities. It doesn’t mean that every community needs to have one, but if we can look at creating something moving forward, because that feasibility study did prove a lot and show a lot in terms of our early childhood development.
You heard some concerns here about the Stanton Territorial Hospital. A big investment. A big project. I was
n’t in the government when the Inuvik school
got built but there were some concerns from the community, and you heard it from Members here in terms of contracting and local employment, and I want to make sure that those things are not overlooked when we’re creating such a big project, especially with a slow economy. I think that our northern contractors, our northern residents need to benefit from a huge project like this.
A lot of the other stuff that I had on the list here Members have said already and I
won’t reiterate
some of their comments. We’ll get into detail, but I just wanted to make a few general comments on the budget.
