Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try to be as succinct as possible here. First of all, I represent five small communities and one regional centre. So when I'm sitting on Cabinet, I'm listening to my colleagues talk, the departments talk, and I'm also sitting on a variety of committees of Cabinet. So we may not get the -- the information that the regular Members get on their committees, but I can guarantee you the opportunity to sit in and have the conversations about budgets and the process at the table -- I know myself, and I can't speak for Minister Chinna, but I should just say that I've heard her speak about small communities, the importance of smaller communities. We -- this Cabinet here is very reflective of what the Northwest Territory is. It's about small communities, regional centres, and the city of Yellowknife. We have representatives of all three in here as we work on the budget.

Mr. Speaker, when we sit there and talk about it, and there was this old adage way back when, if everybody's not happy it means you've done a good job in the negotiation process.

Am I happy about this? No. There's things in here that I wish I wanted to see. There was some of the negotiations that frustrated me because there was things missing. But at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is the residents of the Northwest Territories. We are here to make this better for people. It's about the residents. At the end of the day, they are our bosses. That's who we're here working for. And I think, and I applaud Minister Wawzonek in her approach. Is it frustrating? We could find three. I've seen it previously. I've seen the government before I became in to be a Member and before I saw -- became a Member of Cabinet.

We're doing business differently. We're having those hard conversations. We're having those negotiations. We're talking. It doesn't seem like we're listening but we're listening. We're having those hard, frank conversations. And we're able to see improvements in the budget be able by the Members. Is it perfect? No. It's never perfect. But I think Minister Green talked about give me $500 million and we would have treatment centres across the North. Well, you give me X amount of dollars, and I can fix a whole bunch of other issues. But we don't have all the money. We don't have all the money we need. We're $1.5 billion in debt. We're getting closer to the debt ceiling. So we got to find creative ways of doing things. And I applaud the regular Members for their negotiations and bringing forth ways to improve things.

Housing has been a struggle for 50 years. We've had the NWT Housing Corporation here. The things that -- we would love to see houses in here, every community. We joke around, I'll give you a house, I'll give you a house, I'll give you a house. We'd love to do that. Is there overcrowding? Yes. I see it every day in my riding. But I work with the Minister on trying to help my constituents like the other regular Members do.

Past experience is when you sit there and you look at big projects. Stanton Hospital, how does that help Somba K'e? Deh Cho Bridge, how does that help Jean Marie? The other highway systems in other regions, how does that help Nahendeh riding? It doesn't, but it helps the people of the Northwest Territories. That's what we're there for working collectively on this. We need to be able to do this.

As the Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs, are we underfunded in the municipal funding gap? We hear all the time are we looking for creative ways of finding solutions to it? Yes. I am now working more hand in hand with the president of NWTAC. We're trying to find alternative ways to get more money into the Northwest Territories. We are going to work together. We're working to -- to try to do a tri-territorial approach to it. So again, it's about how we are able to do things.

At the end of the day, am I happy with this budget? No. I would love to see more things happen in my riding. I would love to see more things happen in other ridings because, you know, when we talk about it, it's about putting food on the table, looking after the people, addressing homelessness, addressing people that are less fortunate. But we're not -- we don't have the endless pot of money.

So I applaud -- again, the Minister of Finance has been true to her word, is that we're going to do consensus government.

What does consensus government mean? It's about working together. It's about listening to people. It's about understanding and understanding and respectful of other people's differing opinions. Because at the end of the day, it's about working together. It's about listening. We need to listen to the residents of the Northwest Territories with the resources that we have.

So is the budget perfect? No. I keep on saying it's not perfect. But the work that's been done has been very helpful.

So Mr. Speaker, I know I said I was going to try to be short, and now I'm almost a little bit longer than I wanted to be. But I am going to support this budget, and I applaud the Minister of Finance to continue on this path. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.