Mr. Speaker, what do we have to do around here to get some more housing money? Mr. Speaker, I have never seen real consensus on any issue amongst this group except for housing. It is clear in this Assembly that housing is a priority. We are committed to improving housing for our residents. Yet despite that, the actual core budget for the Housing Corporation just won't increase in any meaningful way, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, for this budget, what I would propose is that we add $20 million to the Housing Corp. budget, and not one-time money. Long-term, real, permanent funding so we can stop talking about 2038 when CMHC funding expires and talk about now. That is what the housing crisis demands. I think with partnerships, proper mobilization, and lobbying, we, in this House, could end chronic homelessness and end our housing crisis. You know, we could stop having citizens literally freeze to death because they have a lack of shelter. That seems a noble goal to me.

So with that in mind, Mr. Speaker, I am going to say some things that I believe this House should have heard today in the budget address.

The first step to me in the budget reply is the narrative we are trying to sell. We need a hook. We need to sell the legacy of this government. To the Minister's credit, we grabbed an easy first narrative, the narrative that we mobilized for COVID; we took action, and the light at the end of the tunnel is here. This gives people hope. However, Mr. Speaker, we didn't finish that narrative. We didn't say that we learned from this pandemic that bold political vision is needed to bring us forward, to keep up the pace and demand that we address our housing crisis.

Mr. Speaker, this budget may as well have been a surrender flag that we've given up on bold political vision with the Minister stating flashy announcements hoping that new money will solve long-standing problems is often the easier political path.

Mr. Speaker, we all know our housing crisis is a long-standing problem. And do you know what solves it? A flashy announcement about new money, Mr. Speaker. And finding new money is not an easy political path. If it was, we would all march down it. There's not some other solution where houses appear without money, Mr. Speaker.

Continuing on this thread, the Minister went on to say, The goal is not headlines to last the next few days or the term of this government.

Firstly, Mr. Speaker, we need some headlines. The complete lack of politicking occurring here is embarrassing. We have been losing the communications battle in this Assembly from day one. To somehow dismiss that governments need to belittle political capital in the media is to remove an entire check on political power and how politics work, Mr. Speaker. We need to sneak in some flashy ways. It's the opportunity for this government to build the political capital to make those tough decisions.

Mr. Speaker, here are some suggestions that I would suggest as flashy headlines.

Coming up in this fiscal year, the GNWT will introduce five paid sick days for workers. Mr. Speaker, our pandemic has taught us that forcing people to choose between missing pay, where they struggle to buy groceries, or going in to work sick and putting their coworkers at risk is a decision that no one should have to make. Look at that flashy headline, Mr. Speaker.

Another suggestion, Mr. Speaker, we have decided to tie minimum wage to inflation. Mr. Speaker, during the pandemic, we called those frontline responders heros. We topped all of their wages up to $18 an hour, and then we removed it. But now we have the second highest minimum wage in Canada, and let's make sure it keeps that way. An easy solution is to tie it to inflation, to make sure that those currently nonliving wages keep up somewhat with the cost of living. Another great flashy headline I would support.

There's lots of options, Mr. Speaker. We could create a holiday. We could remove Walmart from BIP. I don't know. We could rename some things. The Mackenzie River or the mountains, does anyone even know that both are named after men named Alexander Mackenzie, one the explorer, one the prime minister? I don't know. Does it matter? Let's name some things in an interest of reconciliation. Perhaps we can merge ENR, MACA, and Lands to save us a few million dollars. They all have one minister. It seems like a great thing to throw into the budget reply.

If none of these are acceptable to Cabinet, Mr. Speaker, I'm sure they could find something.

Mr. Speaker, the next the Minister said, The goal is to influence the path of the Northwest Territories for the next five or even ten years. And I agree, Mr. Speaker. But the way you influence the long-term path is by changing the core budget.

This entire budget is simply a continuation of the last budget. And we passed Bob McLeod's capital budget in the fall, and we're continuing to pass his operating budget, Mr. Speaker.

If we truly want a long-term, five to ten year plan that influences the future, let's add $20 million to the Housing Corp's budget.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister also stated that they are optimistic we can control future spending through internal savings and continuing to find more value from the $2.1 billion that we spend without having to reduce programs and services. This has been the fiscal goal our first year in the 19th Assembly and is the cornerstone of our government renewal work. End quote.

Mr. Speaker, this is a noble goal. I know that we don't want to talk about reducing programs and services, but I think that is the wrong frame. It is not a reduction in programs and services. It is a shifting of priorities. We look at one pot of money we are already spending and say a better priority would be housing. And I have not seen the evidence to date that government renewal is truly going to get to the level of spending we need to be talking about. We need to be talking about 10s of millions of dollars, and I'm not convinced there are easy, magical efficiencies or pots of money to be found by scrutinizing government budgets. If they were, I think we would have found them by already, Mr. Speaker. We need to be talking about hard tough choices that we need to make.

Mr. Speaker, I believe where we have landed is, in fact, the most valid and true criticism of consensus government. We have landed in a budget that is designed by committee. It is compromised until the status quo budget is reserved again and again.

I've said this before, Mr. Speaker, that the Cabinet plus three is a problematic view of consensus government. But even worse is to never have a single close vote in this House. Even worse is to never propose things that we will be divided on and ultimately might just pass with a slim margin. Those are the kind of proposals we need to see to end homelessness and get our fiscal house in order. Anything that we all agree on is not meaningful action, Mr. Speaker.

Firstly, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to speak to some ways I believe we could find $20 million to add to housing and end homelessness in this territory. They are not easy decisions. I know all of my colleagues won't agree with them necessarily but I believe they have the majority of support of these Members, and that is the budget we need to put forward to show the people we can mobilize.

Firstly, we need to put a freeze on public sector hiring. Perhaps with the exception of Health, but every single year the budget adds a few more positions here and there and the demand for more staff is endless. We know this. And it's hard to remove three or four or five or six positions at a time. But it adds up. And the way I view it is every one of those GNWT workers is six people we could house. That's using a metric of $25,000 operating cost per housing unit, with a bit of an exception, that housing unit can house multiple people, Mr. Speaker. That's the way we need to look at this. Do we want one finance officer or six more housing units, Mr. Speaker?

Next, Mr. Speaker, Yellowknife gets everything. Yellowknife gets everything. It's like a broken record at the side of my head whenever I speak in this House. Well, let's do something about it, Mr. Speaker. Let's do what the majority of MLAs clearly want and put forward a plan for decentralization. I suggest we start with an email. Let's email headquarters staff and ask if any of them want to relocate to the communities. If they do, we have a remote work policy, we can find a way to make it work. I would say a great target in this area is a hundred jobs. And if we can't find a hundred people, I'm sure we can relocate some units. Lawyers are flexible, Mr. Speaker. Let's just move the Department of Justice to Fort Smith.

Mr. Speaker, at some point we Yellowknife MLAs have to ask ourselves does Yellowknife really need more GNWT workers? We're half a step away from renaming the town Yellowknife or GNWT town. I'm asking my constituents, do we need more GNWT workers in Yellowknife? I see a majority of MLAs in this House who want decentralization and let's put a path forward so we can end that fight and find consensus on our true priority which is housing, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, some other ideas I have, which you don't have to take all of them, but I'll throw a few out.

As I said, merging ENR, MACA, and Lands. Corporate restructuring comes with removing some duplicate positions. It saves some money.

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to just end the COVID Secretariat. Perhaps we have to give a few more positions to Public Health to manage the pandemic going forward, but there's $14 million for the COVID Secretariat in this budget, and I don't believe we need that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, next, I believe we need to create a high income tax bracket. If we are truly committed to ending homelessness, I think we can ask those who make over $180,000 a year to pay a little extra in tax, Mr. Speaker. I'll note that many of those people are, in fact, GNWT workers.

Next, Mr. Speaker, I believe we need to increase corporate tax by one percent. We in this House, rightfully so, lowered our small business corporate tax rate. However, Mr. Speaker, we could raise our corporate tax rate for those companies that make over $500,000 a year by one percent and still be below Yukon and competitive across Canada.

Next, Mr. Speaker, we have a collective agreement. I am not proposing anything like legislating pay cuts or not bargaining in good faith but we know we have to go into the next round of collective bargaining with a very tough position. And here I am speaking directly to the UNW, Mr. Speaker. At some point, the UNW has to reflect that if we keep giving raises to the public service, which is majority southern and majority based in Yellowknife, the public trust will be eroded, Mr. Speaker. We need to drive that bargain with the union. And every time we get a $10 million forced growth for collective bargaining, that is significant money that is not housing people in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker.

At some point, $430 million we are currently spending on compensation and benefits for a majority southern workforce is just not a good idea.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is not necessarily a cost savings, but I believe the Department of Finance budgets a few percent based on what they anticipate collective bargaining will be. So a hard bargain frees up some room in our debt ceiling that we are very quickly approaching.

Next, Mr. Speaker, I believe we need to reduce our contract services budget by two percent for about $4 million savings.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we have seen contract services increase over the years. Some of these are completely warranted contract services; other, I believe, are departments contracting out key government functions such as consultation, engagement and policy work, work that should be done by public servants. Additionally, I believe we are increasingly turning to contractors and consultants, a lot of them ex-GNWT workers, because we have created too burdensome processes. We all know the process, Mr. Speaker, because what we heard report strategy, action plan, implementation plan, oh and finally, sorry department, we don't have any money.

Mr. Speaker, we need to stop talking to people if we're not actually going to fund the 25 point plan. Stop reviewing things when the to-do list we already have is a mile long. I believe in reviewing our government processes, we can end a lot of bureaucracy and find a 2 percent cost savings in contract services.

Next, a pet project of mine. I don't know if this will actually save us any money but I believe we need to end the contracts for all the fax machines in the GNWT, Mr. Speaker.

Second, Mr. Speaker, a few years ago when I worked at the GNWT, there was a proposal to adopt a completely paperless GNWT with cost savings. The GNWT has moved in this direction but there is still far too much paper flying around, and we are not a digital government we should be. Additional cost savings.

Next, Mr. Speaker, we have three men's correctional institutes. We have one in Fort Smith, Hay River, and Yellowknife. We do not need three prisons. What I would rather see than cost on prisons and money spent imprisoning people is housing them, Mr. Speaker. I don't care which one of these facilities we close or how we do it or how we move them around, but we do not need three prisons, some of which only have a dozen people in them, Mr. Speaker. They are simply there to create jobs in communities. We could probably take that budget and turn them into treatment centres, Mr. Speaker.

Next, Mr. Speaker, I believe that we can have a 10 percent reduction in office space and reduce for a savings of $3 million. I have long time talked about the way leasing is spread out across all departments, there's no centralization, and the vast majority of that money goes to one company Northview. We have remote work standards. We need to conduct a serious review led by one person about how to reduce office space. A 10 percent reduction in leasing costs would be $3 million a year, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, there's a couple other proposals presented. We have a health efficiency group where staff are going to find some efficiencies in our health care system. I'm not convinced that this is worth it. I believe we'd be better off cutting those positions and simply governing the money to our health care system.

There's probably some other smaller cuts related to the proposals in the budget but if I was giving a budget reply, Mr. Speaker, I perhaps would not focus on them too much. I would propose the spending on housing, in combination with our Indigenous governments, to end chronic homelessness in the NWT, ending homelessness. That is what this budget should be doing. And by not doing that, we are saying it is not something we are willing to do and it is not a priority. Housing people saves lives, and it saves the government money in the long run but we have once again decided to present a status quo budget. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.