Thanks, Madam Chair. I do sincerely want to thank all my colleagues in this House for the debate that we've had. I think this is probably the most important debate that we've had since we've been elected. Unfortunately, it comes at not the greatest time, with a number of other things looming in the background for us, of course.

First off, I want to make it very clear that this motion is not about the other projects that are in the supplementary appropriation. I support the other work that's in here for Inuvik, and I've always been very clear about that. This is about this one part, and it's about removing the funding in the supplementary appropriation for the Slave Geological Province Road.

This is a debate about the future of the Northwest Territories, and the vision that we'll have. We don't all share the same vision, and that's the way it should be. That's part of consensus government, as well. If the only future that we have is pinning all of our hopes on this one project, I wouldn't do it this way. This is about more of the same. This is more about an extraction-based economy moving forward. As my colleague from Yellowknife Centre said, we're not ready for that. Even after devolution, we're not ready for it. We haven't put in place the kinds of systems to make sure that we truly benefit from this scale of resource development. Thirty billion dollars' worth of diamonds have left the Northwest Territories; $30 billion worth. We have a heritage fund that's $26 million. We've done a terrible job in terms of distribution of the benefits from diamond mining across generations, across the Northwest Territories. We have not done a good job. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues of this House to make sure that we change that, that we need to change that, and we need to do that now. It should have been started four years ago. It should have been started 20 years ago, but it didn't, and I'm worried that we're going to fall into the same traps again.

You can look at how Nunavut has approached the federal government, and the kind of relationships that they have developed. Nunavut got a lot more money for housing because, when they went to Ottawa, they talked about housing. That's not what the government did in the last Assembly. They went and talked about big infrastructure projects, and we got dribs and drabs of money, but Nunavut got more money than we did around housing, and that's what I hoped I could encourage our Cabinet to do, the same thing. When they go to Ottawa, housing has to be a top priority, and I think we started to see some evidence of that.

People say that I'm anti-development, and I know I'm going to get criticized for some of the things that I've said here today. I'm not. Our job is to make sure that, when there is resource development, we actually benefit from it. We have to make wise decisions around the priorities, even priorities amongst the three infrastructure projects that were identified when we set the priorities in the mandate. If it was up to me, I would finish the Mackenzie Valley Highway. That's the project that makes most sense. It connects communities, and, if it's done at a scale and pace so that communities can actually benefit from it, given their labour capacity, labour force, that is what I think we can and should be doing.

This project is speculative at best. I understand my colleague from Yellowknife North. This is about getting more information. It is, but I'm just not sure we want to start down that road, so to speak. An example of that is the Mackenzie Valley Highway, which has been in an environmental assessment for six years because it was not well defined. The government leap-frogged ahead and started to do the environmental assessment work before they'd finished the planning work, before they'd lined up the funding. It's been mired in environmental assessment for six years. That is what is going to happen with the Slave Geological Province Road if we don't have the funding lined up, and we don't. I'm just not sure why we want to start to spend money on that right now.

Some people have talked about how the $2.5 million is a small investment. It's actually not a small investment. That is a quarter of the entire amount that we have to invest in the mandate for this year. It is significant. That is a lot of money. Today, people are going to make the conscious choice of whether they want to spend it on an environmental assessment for a road or other priorities that we have. That is the decision we are being asked to make here today.

The other couple of things, lessons learned that I want to take away, and I am talking to my Cabinet colleagues in particular, is: you haven't done a good job selling these large infrastructure projects with this side of the House. I think that is shown in the division that we are going to get with the vote here today. You haven't done a good job explaining what those projects are all about, the cost, the benefits, and whether we can afford them or not. People on our side, we need to hold you accountable to that and get better information out of you.

I think that's all I wish to say, Madam Chair. I had requested a recorded vote. As I said, I think this is probably the most important debate that we have had in this House since we have been elected. I know it doesn't come at the best time, so I want to apologize to everybody for putting them through this. This is something we have to do. We have to stand up and be counted, and our residents need to know where we stand on these issues. Thanks, Madam Chair.