Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am going to start off with a comment. I agree with what my colleagues on this side of the House are saying, that this is not going to help us close the municipal funding gap and that the 19th Assembly needs to do better when it comes to closing the municipal funding gap. Closing the municipal funding gap, we have talked a lot about empowering communities if we want communities to be able to take on greater decision-making capabilities, if we want them to do program development. This week alone, we have talked a lot about after-care resources, we have talked a lot about addiction supports. If we want to be able to work with municipalities to be able to run these kinds of programs, then we need to empower them financially to do so.
There is also the element of jobs. The Conference Board of Canada has come out and has said that municipalities create twice the amount of jobs per million that territorial or provincial levels of government are able to create, and so it's a job piece, as well. It turns around and creates jobs in small communities, which is also another mandate item for the 19th Assembly. On top of that, I do not think it's a stretch to say this funding is a mental-health piece. Right now, in the middle of COVID, this funding goes directly to our municipalities and our communities to be able to build and create and run facilities that keep our kids active and that keep our kids busy, and so this money is very important in order to play a key role in keeping our kids active at a time when we desperately need it. I would definitely like to highlight that these dollars have to do with community wellness and our imperative to being able to allow communities to grow programs and grow facilities so that our Northerners have stuff to do.
The question I have is: if this is the capital money going towards communities -- we have communities like Yellowknife that are looking at major capital projects. For example, the City of Yellowknife is doing the water submarine line right now, and they have gone through the process of getting capital dollars through the federal government to be able to fund that. That funding leaves on the table a need for $8.6 million to be able to fully fund that project. With this kind of closure of the municipal funding gap, we are not there yet, so is the GNWT prepared to support the need for an additional $8.6 million for the water submarine pipeline for the City of Yellowknife? Thank you.
