Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it has been a long five weeks reviewing and deliberating on the 2024-2025 Budget. I put forward my reply to the Budget Address which spoke to my initial reaction to the budget, which was that I felt we needed to do more to focus or attention on the priorities agreed upon by this Assembly. To this end, I put forward some changes I wanted to see and supported those brought forward by my colleagues, many of which I agreed with, and the majority of which spoke directly to these priorities. AOC put in some long hours and managed to find consensus on a list of changes we wanted to see in order to receive our support for the budget.
I want to thank my colleagues for their hard work on those requests. It was a truly collaborative process and I think showed what committee can achieve when we work together. I was particularly proud that we were the first group of MLAs to put forward our demands publicly so our constituents could see what we're fighting for. I really appreciate that commitment to transparency and want to continue that.
Through the subsequent process of negotiation, I can say that we were able to push both the budget and the government's business plans further towards the priorities I want us to be focused on. I certainly did not get everything I was hoping for, but I'm not sure anyone on either side of the House can say that. And that tends to be the nature of negotiations, Mr. Speaker, particularly in our consensus system. Our system is structured in a way which necessitates compromise both between Cabinet and Regular Members and among all Members of this Assembly. There has been much debate about the merits and challenges of consensus government but time and again, the territories communicated that they want to continue using this system and, in particular, during this recent election I heard loud and clear from my constituents that they want to see us working together effectively and respectfully, and I am committed to doing just that.
I want to speak to a few things I consider small wins we were able to achieve and things I will continue to fight on because we didn't quite get there. As we were working on negotiations, our AOC chair, the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, asked us for our hills to die on, for him and our deputy chair from the Deh Cho to fight for in negotiations.
Mr. Speaker, my first hill to die on was housing. It is the first priority of this Assembly and, accordingly, I felt it needed further emphasis in this budget. Through deliberations, we advocated for and succeeded in obtaining increased money for housing maintenance and also for some specific projects. Housing NWT also laid out during deliberations the impressive amount of work scheduled for this year, which I am pleased to see moving forward.
Perhaps the most important thing that will help us truly move the needle on housing in our territory are the commitments in the business plan to do a comprehensive needs assessment for housing in the NWT and an infrastructure deficit assessment. While we did not succeed in attaching much money to these initiatives in this round, they will help us quantify the problem and provide a foundation of evidence to inform our budgets going forward. I want to thank the Minister responsible for Housing NWT for her strong leadership in pushing the department to get those initiatives completed more with quickly than initial planned. Well done. In return, I am committed to using the information generated by these reports to keep pushing the government to put its money behind ensuring that we are serious about addressing our housing crisis as our top priority.
My second hill to die on was pausing or removing income testing for extended health benefits. This policy change is adding hardship to a number of my constituents who are already struggling with disabilities or chronic illness, Mr. Speaker, and I do not support the change. This one came down to the wire. And although we did not get what I was looking for, I am pleased that we received concession on our request to at least increase the income threshold, which I hope remains in place, and I strongly encourage the Minister to fight to ensure that deductible payments are spread over the year for folks above the threshold to help lessen the blow from this change.
My third hill to die on was restoring midwifery services in Yellowknife. Again, we did not get exactly what we were looking for there, but we did get a concession, which is really not what I was looking to achieve but as I said to the president of the midwives association last night, we have at least opened a door which can lead us to a path to expanding midwifery services in what I hope will become many communities in the NWT over time. To Heather and Leslie and all of the midwifery champions who raised their voices, I continue to encourage you to push hard. We will get there, and you will have my full support along the way.
I also want to acknowledge the significant number of changes advocate the for the health care system which I haven't mentioned here but which were agreed to wholly or in part by the department, and I am hopeful that we can see some meaningful change in our health care system over the next year and will certainly keep fighting for it.
I want to particularly thank the Member for Yellowknife North for her hard work on bringing forward constructive and thoughtful recommendations for policy and practice changes in health, which I think could make a real difference. I also want to thank the Member for Range Lake who has been relentless in fighting for our nurses.
I would note that I haven't mentioned a number of items here which I was glad we achieved; namely, the increase to Aurora College's funding. I have spoken a lot to the importance of education during this session so I'm not going to repeat myself again here, Mr. Speaker, but I want to thank the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake in helping to bring forward some proposals which could help us move the needle on that initiative. It is such an important initiative for our territory, Mr. Speaker.
As an aside, with your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I would also like to extend a special thanks to my girlfriend Rayanna who has been holding down the house while I've been working long days and nights over the past number of weeks. You mean the world to me and are my number one supporter. I appreciate you so much.
Mr. Speaker, the question I was facing as I phoned constituents and collaborators to tell them that we got some small wins, but not everything we were asking for by any means, was whether I could support this budget. I went to bed with this question not completely settled in my mind but came to work today with a better sense of clarity. I think if I was to vote against the budget now after the hard work by myself and my colleagues to develop consensus, work together on our respective priorities for our ridings, after the finance Minister and Cabinet came to the table in good faith and worked with us to find something we could all disagree with on some level or another, it would not respect the work we all did to find consensus. From day one, I never came here expecting to get everything I want. I like to think that I bring a realistic and reasonable perspective to the table. And part of that is understanding that progress happens in incremental wins, by working collaboratively with our colleagues on their priorities and, in turn, receiving their support for our own and committing to keep the pressure on so that over time, piece by piece, we can turn small wins into big changes. To that end, Mr. Speaker, I will support this budget with a strong commitment to keep fighting for change going forward, to keep putting the pieces in place to ensure that change happens and gathering evidence which will make it harder to refuse the next time we deliberate. I care so deeply about this work, Mr. Speaker, and I will continue to put everything I have into it. Thank you very much.