Thank you, Madam Speaker. I remember coming into the Assembly here February 10th, 2022, and when I was asked to put my name forward to run for MLA, in my riding they talked about the high cost of living. And we take a look at the community of Lutselk'e alone, you know, we have problems with the internet service that's just down the road. It costs a lot of money just to fly there and the cost of living in that community is high already as it is. And right now a lot of my friends are talking that, you know, where does this end? Like, the high cost of living in the North is here. Friends of mine are saying well, I'm thinking about moving south now because they can't afford to continue to live here. And then in regards to this carbon tax, you know, and there's no guarantees. You know, if it's going to be set at a certain rate and percentage on an annual basis, right now as it is, you know, it's not -- this fossil fuel thing is not going to go away overnight. It's going to be 20, 30 years before we have something to replace it. And that's reality living here in the Northwest Territories. And, for example, just to convert -- if we were to go to propane or natural gas in a home, we could probably spend about $50,000 just in my riding. My community alone, there's 540 homes. That's just to convert. $27 million just to get off fossil fuel. But where's the Government of Canada in this whole thing? You know, to me that hits home.
And right now as it is, while that's happening, you know, when people go out in the bush to get some wood, they already got to buy wood. The cost of just to getting that wood is expensive. And I know for sure in Lutselk'e they talk about, you know, winter road to help reduce cost of living and anything that we could do to do that. And I know in Dettah and N'dilo here, we're just on the highway systems. But just because we're right next to the city of Yellowknife, we're still feeling the impacts of the high cost of living. You know, fuel prices of oil has gone up. Power's gone up. Last year this time, after the session was ended, the power rates in my communities in Fort Resolution and also in Fort Smith went up 20 percent over the next two years. And good thing it was repealed and was brought back, you know, and -- but now when you go back online, you take a look at the website where the regulatory board is for the power, regulators here in the Northwest Territories, again NTPC went back and made an application to increase those power rates again. So it's getting to the point now where it's getting out of hand. The cost of living here in the Northwest Territories is just too high. It doesn't matter how you look at it. It doesn't matter where you live. It's impacting everybody here in the Northwest Territories. And if you were to take that $891 million just to do all 33 communities, that's what it's going to convert all those homes in the Northwest Territories. I just threw that out there as a number. We're not ready yet. It's going to be a long time yet before -- you know, Canada's going to step in to really try to help us and, in the meantime, we got to pay our share. But I really feel bad for the elders, the people in the communities, the single mothers, you know, the people that are just getting by from paycheque to paycheque. And now they're going -- on April 1st, they're going to be paying a lot more for the cost of fuel at the pumps. When you order fuel at their homes, again it's -- where does it end? And this morning, you know, when I -- when I heard that, you know, this -- we had that discussion in the committee, and I know my colleagues over here said who do you trust? Like, right now, you know, we had time, you know, we had a lot of time to really try to get this thing sorted out and organized and, you know, really, this is not a made-in-the North solution. We never really consulted with all the people in the Mackenzie Valley yet. A lot of people are still phoning me. They're sending me messages, emails, saying that don't support it. And I had to think about it. And I've been trying to figure a way to look at this and I'm trying -- I was kind of hoping that we really look at the Yukon model and Nunavut model and -- but no, it didn't happen. And now we're in the 11th hour here, we're forced to make a decision that's really going to impact our people in our communities. And, you know, again, this morning I was asked who do you trust?
At the end of the day, you know, when I -- when I look at the budget, we had, what, $2.2 billion, we're -- our debt limit's, what, 1.6; we're not very far off from $1.8 billion. You know, the economy in the Northwest Territories are not doing well right now. The mining industry's not there. The royalties are -- payments are not coming. Again, it's -- we're in a really tough situation now. And when Nunavut was here in 1999, when we parted ways, we had 3300 employees. Now we got 6600 with contractors and all that. So we got a lot to think about. And the next government, they're going to have to make some tough decisions. And, you know, it's really concerning for me now to talk about this but at the end of the day, you know -- and it's part of the mandate, you know, they was going to look at in 2019 to 2023, they talked about trying to help reduce the cost of living and the power rates and everything else. But it seems like we're not -- we're not following our own words. We say we all come together, we put that document together and all of a sudden, you know, we put that aside, and we're continuing to look at increasing the cost of living here in the Northwest Territories. It just bothers me.
And I asked for simple things for my riding. Simple things. I asked for a winter road. Nothing. I asked for money for inspections of the homes in my community. Nothing. I asked for homeownership repairs in my community. Nothing. And I had to make some tough decisions here about whether or not I should support the budget.
Last year there was nothing in there. $3.4 million to fix up public housing. This year housing corporation is taking money, that $60 million CIRNAC money, to fix up public housing but yet in my communities we really need homeownership repairs. So I'm really torn here. But at the end of the day, you know, who do we trust? And from what I could see and what the -- the way, how we were treated in my community, and I go back over the years, yes, we got a little bit here and there, and that's it. But this is not consensus government. If we had a chance, we should all work together. But we're not. It doesn't seem that way. You know, we play one off each another. People that sign on to devolution are treated different from the ones that didn't sign on to it.
So it really is disturbing for me to say that, you know, are you going to support this and trust the GNWT. That's a tough one.
So, Madam Chair, I agree with my colleague Jackie Jacobson that, you know, we really need to think about the people in our communities. That's who put us here. This is the public government. And when we do this kind of thing, it sends the wrong messages. It doesn't matter if I -- if I support this, the GNWT's going to do it. If I don't, it's going to be the federal government. But at the end of the day, who do we trust?
You know, these guys here have been around since 1967 and since devolution, they got their own land claim. So at this point in time, Madam Chair, I'm going to vote against the budget on Bill 60. Thank you.