Madam Chair, thank you. It is perhaps fitting that we are going to discuss what I agree is an important debate on a day when we are otherwise very focused on marshalling resources here in the Northwest Territories for the health and safety of our people. It brings, for me, as Minister of Finance, into focus the fact that we are so dependent on the federal government for so many things. It brings into focus the fact that we have to remain, at times, more visionary and better leaders; more visionary of our future and better leaders for our people.
One of the priorities that we collectively set, all 19 of us, Madam Chair, as you well know, was to have strategic investments in our infrastructure. Specifically, this project, Madam Chair. This is one of the first opportunities that we're having to actually advance those priorities in a meaningful way. We didn't come to that decision about priorities easily. We didn't come to it necessarily unanimously, but, Madam Chair, that's not necessarily how consensus government works. Consensus government is an opportunity to debate and to discuss.
Madam Chair, we are before you here. I am before you here on what I've said already is agreed to as being a priority for this Assembly, that it was something we would move forward on. The current appropriation that is being proposed builds on an appropriation that existed already from 2019. It's an opportunity to begin the employment assessment. It's an opportunity to begin the planning. What that then means, Madam Chair, is that this is an opportunity to be comprehensive. It's an opportunity to be consultative. It's an opportunity to showcase the fact that the Northwest Territories can do resource development differently and better. We can be leaders in resource development. We can be leaders in Indigenous relationships. We can be leaders in ways that can show the rest of Canada how modern resource development can work. This is just one part of it. This is just the opening stages, the environmental assessment and the planning stage.
Madam Chair, it's an opportunity to be world-class. It's also an opportunity, Madam Chair, to deliver widespread benefits across the Northwest Territories. It's an opportunity to truly have all of our people shine. It's the first phase, and it's a phase where, if we're going to have the concerns already raised around whether or not, Madam Chair, to involve and engage local employment, then that's up to us. It's up to us, Madam Chair, through our procurement and our contracting to ensure that, in fact, we engage the people of the Northwest Territories.
Madam Chair, it's an opportunity for us to actually bring forward a project that will have benefits for several regions. For example, Madam Chair, it was suggested that we could invest this money elsewhere, in the Frank Channel Bridge. Well, the Frank Channel Bridge is a key link. If this is going to be a transportation corridor that's going to link the Northwest Territories to Nunavut, to the Arctic, well, we need to maintain the existing linkages we have, and the Frank Channel Bridge is a critical part of that. By bringing this project forward, I'd suggest that, in fact, this is going to be another reason why the Frank Channel Bridge should be brought forward, as well, and it's going to be a strong reason to support that project.
We have, in the past, sought funding for the Frank Channel, but the federal government had granted this project the funding; but this is now a chance to come back around and say that that bigger picture, that vision, needs to be supported on all those fronts.
Madam Chair, it's also an opportunity to, perhaps, boost our clean energy industry. It's an opportunity to look at what's happening in Taltson and say whether or not this would not actually support that project, too, by encouraging development, by encouraging the opportunity for further corridors for energy delivery.
Obviously, too, Madam Chair, this is an opportunity where we can better develop the mineral resource sector in terms of the kinds of mining industry that will support green energy. Again, Madam Chair, we can be leaders in this, but it is up to us to have that vision, and it's up to us as to how you're going to develop it, and this is really, again, just the starting point.
We all know in this House that we're facing a decline in our current resource industry. Our current resource industry has already largely reached its peak, arguably has reached its peak, and we want to rebuild our mineral resource industry. We want to build investor confidence, and we want to rebuild that in a way that is current and modern and responsive to this Assembly, and this Assembly's vision. This is not prior Assemblies. This is not the past Assembly. This is not the way things have always been done. We all arrived here on a mission of change, and we all arrived her on a mission of doing things differently and better. That means keeping resource dollars in the North. That means keeping the spending on projects in the North. That means engaging local industries. That will be up to all of us, and it will be up to this Cabinet to do that, and to deliver on that promise.
Madam Chair, I don't see necessarily that it's a simple choice of saying, "Spend it on health or spend it on something else." That's not, unfortunately, the ease with which government budgeting works. We just don't get to pick and choose one thing over another. We need an economy in the North. If we don't have an economy in the North, Madam Chair, we aren't going to have people. We won't need all the other things if we don't have the people here to support that economy. We need all of these things together. That's where it becomes a case of saying, Madam Chair, that I do believe that we have to advance this project, and advance housing. We can advance this project with this vote, and still vote on all the other things that we have in our priorities by being careful, by being balanced, by looking at that total picture.
Would I ask necessarily for this House to vote on the same project over and over? No, Madam Chair; that's not what we've done. We've presented a $2 billion budget. This is one small piece of an infrastructure supplementary appropriation to do one project, but there's so much more that the GNWT is delivering on. This project, however, Madam Chair, is the opportunity to grow the economy, to increase investor confidence, and to truly move ourselves forward in a way that makes us different and leaders.
Madam Chair, the consequences of not doing that are significant. If we were to choose to turn this away, and to turn this money away, we'd be turning our backs on a project that's been approved to the tune of $30 million from the federal government. I have over and over now already heard it said, the importance of reaching out to our federal partners. The importance of engaging with the federal government to ensure investment in infrastructure in the North, social infrastructure and physical infrastructure. Madam Chair, I'm not sure where exactly I would go or how I would restart if we were to suddenly turn around and say, "No, this major nation-building project that you've been looking at since the 1950s, we're turning our backs on it."
Madam Chair, I don't think we can afford to do that. I think, too, we have to think about the bigger scene of what we're building, what we're potentially building. It is a transportation corridor into an area that doesn't have communities. It's a transportation corridor into an area of high economic opportunity. There are tourism opportunities. This will support the ability to, again, as I've said, ultimately support a potentially green energy industry in terms of the minerals that are being sourced. It provides a corridor into Nunavut. It really is nation-building, and it's up to us whether we want to do that.
Madam Chair, as a result of that, I am asking people to continue to vote this project forward, and to, as such, not vote in favour of the motion to remove this money from the supplementary appropriation. Thank you, Madam Chair.