Thank you, Madam Chair. I echo many of the comments made by my colleagues, and when I look at what we're planning to spend on infrastructure, we're spending $450 million this year. Then, it's going to decline to $364, $282, $275. It's clear we're planning to decline our infrastructure investment because, as the Minister points out, our operating surplus is declining. We are marching toward our debt wall, and we are expected to hit the second debt ceiling we asked for in this Assembly.

I guess what this reflects is a Cabinet presenting a budget where hard decisions have not been made. I recognize that this Cabinet inherited a capital budget with over half of it being carry-overs. That's not a great position to be in. I recognize we passed one budget, and the agreement was that it was largely a status quo budget. I struggle to pass this capital budget knowing that all of the other ones will be smaller, or should be smaller, going forward, and we know that we are probably not going to spend all of this money. We're going to tie it up, and it's going to get deferred.

Second, my other concern is: as I mentioned earlier today, we are consistently underfunding our municipalities. I have no doubt that our municipalities are one of our best economic returns on investments. I know they will spend that money in their communities. I don't have any concerns about them going down South. I don't have concerns about them not hiring local. It is a great return on investment. I believe we need to increase municipal funding by $5 million. This is a $450-million capital budget; I believe we can find that money. I am willing to take it out of our own department of infrastructure's $292 million. Now, I also recognize in some sense this is robbing Peter to pay Paul. I know we have a massive infrastructure deficit. I know we have some of the oldest infrastructure, but we as the GNWT are much better suited to go to the federal government. We have the ability to take on debt. We have the ability to lobby, to get those 75 cent dollars. Most of our community governments are overworked, and they don't have the time to begin even writing a proposal to the federal government. I will not be voting in for this capital budget unless I can see an increase to municipal funding.

The second thing I want to see is an increase to housing. Housing is one of those rare pieces of capital we can build that I think will actually save us money. We know that housing people keeps them out of the justice system, it makes them healthier, and our health budget is ballooning, so if we can house some more people maybe our health outcomes could increase. Madam Chair, I don't believe the work has been done on this capital budget to assess how we are going to stop this trend of turnovers, how we are going to stop running into our debt wall before the life of this Assembly, and I don't believe the work has been to connect our capital budget and our operating budget. To me, if we can house our people, we can save money in health. It's one of the few areas where the input can directly decrease the costs of another department.

Lastly, Madam Chair, I think there is a lot of work to be done in the overall assessment of how we are spending our capital. I know there is great work to be done on the Business Incentive Program. I know there is great work to be done on procurement. I have faith in this Minister to get this work done. My concern is that we're going to spend $450 million, and that work won't be done. I don't see why we can't defer some of this capital, spend it in subsequent years when the Business Incentive Policy is revised, when our procurement is revised, we can level out our capital spending and make sure every single dollar going out has a proper economic analysis attached to it and is under our new procurement regime. I got a great commitment from the Minister to speed up our work on procurement, but right now, we are asking to spend the largest capital budget in GNWT history and possibly, according to this, the largest capital budget in the life of this Assembly, without having done our procurement review. Thank you, Madam Chair.