Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I empathize with the concern that we had 22 priorities, and that was too many, and the future Assembly should aim to have less. But I am still not convinced that if we had less priorities we would be in a much better situation. I think there is a bit of a bellwether, that we're at our halfway mark and then there's a sense of frustration in this House. Notably, we have been in a global pandemic and steering the GNWT ship is a difficult task and COVID has not made that easier. But, Mr. Speaker, I believe we have to pick some of those priorities and get them done. And to be honest, Mr. Speaker, I don't really care which it is. It is whatever we think we can accomplish.
If we walked out of that priority room with one to settle and implement land claim agreements, from what I have seen to date I don't believe the GNWT is willing or capable of doing that. If we walked out of one to get our housing out of core need, I don't believe the GNWT is willing or capable of doing that, because I have not seen an appetite to make hard decisions. I have not seen a system in place that allows us to make hard decisions.
Mr. Speaker, in order to accomplish any of our priorities in a meaningful way, we have to make cuts from our budget. We have to go in to departments and we have remove programs and services, programs and services that people like and that people enjoy, in order to prioritize another priority. That is the reality. There is no way to tax hundreds of millions of dollars out of the people of the NWT. If we want to develop our own priorities, we can't wait for the federal government.
Likely the legacy of this Assembly will be one of internal infighting, Mr. Speaker, unless we do something differently. The other legacy might be getting universal child care but really we can only thank Justin Trudeau for that, Mr. Speaker.
I want to see the next budget not be a status quo budget. I have little faith right now that government renewal will accomplish this. I believe government renewal, at best, is dealing with 1 to 5 percent of the budget and hopefully keeps us just under our debt ceiling. I don't believe there is any efficiency you can find in government without making very tough political decisions about what programs, services, or infrastructure we don't prioritize over others.
Mr. Speaker, that work needs to be done. It needs to be started by our Cabinet colleagues and then we need to have the tough fight to make sure we have some sort of legacy in two years from now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.