Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that this is a good example of one of our budgets where we see a lot of numbers in the Minister's opening comment that have been unchanged for many, many years. The SEED Program, the Mineral Incentive Program, these are very useful subsidies to industry that remain stubbornly resistant to investment from, again, a government that's primarily driven by fiscal reduction targets and fiscal strategy rather than investment in growth, which is the source of the great budget debate we find ourselves in.

There are some troubling cuts. There are cuts to the Business Development and Investment Corporation in the amount of $477,000; reduction to community futures contributions of $42,000. These functions are crucial to front-line business support and supporting entrepreneurs and providing them the support they need to access capital, access opportunities for themselves and by extension create jobs in our communities. In particular, the Community Futures Contributions, dollar-for-dollar, those are high-impact investments and we've seen the success of those funds used very effectively in Indigenous communities. So why we are looking at rolling back some of those, I don't understand.

The SEED Program as well, it's a very useful program. It has a great deal of subscribers, and yet we're not looking at increasing it. The Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning has suggested an increase of $1.2 million in order to support the needs of a diversified economy.

One of the things we hear from entrepreneurs, from our constituents, and even from the department in business plan review is that there is not a lot of capital to go around and in times of economic recession or decline, government increasingly becomes the primary source of capital and access to those funds that can make diversification possible, and we need to do more. We need to do a better job of making those funds available so we can start to see that diversification which has been a long-stated goal of previous assemblies and is a goal of this Assembly.

You know, we're just skimming the surface, and what we are recommending as a committee is to do a bit more than that. To put a bit more capital out there for our entrepreneurs to access and, as my honourable friend mentioned, cut the red tape on business and increase the amount of loans that entrepreneurs can have access to.

I think we've seen incredible growth in tourism as well, and this plan has a lot of investment in that sector, and that's good, but we can't forget about manufacturing, we can't forget about agriculture, we can't forget about our creative fields such as the film industry. There have been a number of recommendations around film and increasing the Film Rebate Program and creating the capacity for Northerners to produce their own films; not just be a place where films are shot, but actually set up a bit of an industry. That may seem daunting, but again, if we work with our industry partners and provide them with the tools and resources they need, I think we could start to see some of these industries take off in very surprising and very fruitful directions.

Something that I often talk about, the Mineral Incentive Program is an incredible program for, again, giving some much-needed capital to junior miners. We hear Ministers of ITI talk about this often, that this is a great program, they're very proud of its success, and yet we do not invest in it. It has remained unchanged.

Our neighbours in the Yukon have a very similar program, except it has an advanced projects category and is currently in the range of $1 million of available funding, and ours is $400,000. So the committee is calling for an increase to top that up to a million dollars and to look at how best we can make those increased funds available to those engaged in exploration activities.

If we want mines, mines take 10 years, Mr. Chairman, and if we want to see new mines, then we need to encourage their exploration. We had a Cabinet attend the Roundup in Vancouver, which I think gives industry very strong signals that the North is interested in this field and wants to be open for business. Now we need to back up that investment with our policies and by making more resources available. Nothing sends a stronger signal than putting mineral incentives into our budget, and ultimately that's where I would like to see this department, in particular, focus its efforts on developing a strong plan for growth that's based on the grassroots and what we do best. We know there's proven success in mining. We know how to work in that industry. We have a lot of expertise in-house to develop that industry, so let's do that, but let's also focus on putting more resources into diversifying our economy. It's not going to happen by itself and, if it is a political goal of this Assembly, it's time to inject the capital we need to make that diversification happen.

So I'm looking forward to discussing this department in-depth and to making further recommendations around the committee's recommendations towards this department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.