Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the first things that I learned in this House when I was elected in 2015 is that consensus government means being heard. It doesn't mean that everybody agrees with a single point. I appreciate the opportunity to be heard today on this issue. I want to say about the mandate commitments that I, personally, did not agree with every priority that we put into the mandate, but what I have learned is that you give a little and take a little. I would not have put three infrastructure projects into that mandate, but there was a lot of interest from other Members in having them all there. That is what we ended up with.

What I said in my reply to the budget address just a couple of weeks ago is that I had a lot of questions about whether we could do all three projects simultaneously, about the ability of the NWT business and employment sectors to maximize the benefits of the projects at this stage, and whether, in fact, the 75 percent offered by Ottawa, while looking like a good deal, is actually the tail wagging the dog. By offering 75 percent, it obliges the NWT to spend 25 percent, and we don't really have 25 percent. This supplemental appropriation will drain our supplementary reserve fund and, in fact, put it into deficit by over $1 million. It's not like we have a lot of money to put into this project or other projects at this time.

What we did do in our mandate, in our priority-setting exercise, which I do fully agree with is, as other Members have mentioned, to look at how to maximize northern benefits from projects and how to maximize northern procurement. That is the whole range of things from contracting northern businesses and employing people who live here full time to or mining and royalty regime. This work hasn't been started. We just agreed to do it in February. We need to do this work before we start spending money on infrastructure, on these big infrastructure projects. I understand it's preparatory work. I also understand that, in the whole scheme of our budget, it is a small amount of money, but we have to start somewhere in putting our feet down and saying, "We are not going to have any more projects in which the majority of the benefits are flowing out of the NWT to contractors who are based outside of the NWT, to workers who fly in and fly out and leave us wondering why we have missed the boat again." We saw that happen with each of the big infrastructure projects we have had to date. At some point, it needs to stop. I am going to suggest that this is the place at which it needs to stop.

I don't want to say that this road should never be built or that it won't ultimately bring some benefits to the Northwest Territories, but I am saying we need to do some preparatory work around retaining benefits in all their different dimensions. We need to do some revenue generating work to put ourselves in a better position to spend the 75-cent dollars that come to us from Ottawa. I will be supporting this motion. Thank you.