Thank you, Minister of Finance. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Any abstentions? Motion has carried. Bill 25 has been read a second time and is ready for third reading.

---Carried

Third reading of bills. Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nunakput, that Bill 25, Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures) 2025-2026, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Finance. To the motion. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've said a couple times today that Northerners sent us here to solve problems. I know that we've heard in this House that progress is slow by design and that we often lack the resources to get things done. However, I reject this notion, this notion of learned helplessness, that only prevents us from taking decisive action to the needs that must be met. We are the architect of our own systems, policies, and political priorities. We can change them if needed to get the results Northerners are looking for. And my fundamental question, I think to everyone here, is why do we think, Mr. Speaker, we have time on our hands? One year has already gone by, and we will soon be facing the end of the term. And in that time, we'll have either survived or been consumed by a trade war, our streets will continue to become unsafe, houses will be built at a snail's pace, and our debt will continue to rise as our economy continues to decline. That's what's being -- that's what the trend is, and that's what we're going to get if we continue to move slow on the problems that we face as a territory.

We're in the midst of a deepening economic crisis. It started with the closure of the diamond mines and also only worsened with the trade war launched by Donald Trump and the downturn in global commodities prices that continue to limit the development of critical minerals in the Northwest Territories.

Our expenditures are unsustainable. Our public debt is astronomical. Our economy has become nearly completely dependent on public sector jobs that we will soon be unable to afford. This is the moment Northerners find themselves in. So the question is, does this budget meet the moment?

Mr. Speaker, public safety is fundamental, and Northerners I speak to are far too often concerned about increasing levels of violence in their communities brought by gangs and guns on their streets. Last year, we put in millions of new spending for policing resources, but we are still waiting on the suite of legislation that will create the tools for law enforcement to tackle these programs head on. Not to mention that in recent days, we have seen potential major changes to the RCMP, commitment to decrease funding for community safety officer programs. So our resources are being diminished, not increased.

Why are we still waiting for these pieces of legislation, Mr. Speaker? We moved a bill in five days. And I know there's public consultations and all that, but let the House do some consultations. We ran on public safety. We put it into our priorities. That should be enough to get the ball rolling and move expediently on this stuff. Maybe it's an exemption to our normal process, but this moment calls for exceptional action, Mr. Speaker.

To quote the powerful statement of my friend for Mackenzie Delta from Hansard on March 11th that he spoke of today: At this time, I will not have any questions for this government because their solutions are few and far between to implement a solution to save our communities in combatting the drug crisis we are experiencing. The drug dealers are using our own residents to kill our own people just for a simple financial transaction. The only question to this House is what can we do today? And my question is, does this budget do enough?

More action is desperately needed to combat the drug trade, fight organized crime, and support our frontline police and paramedics, who are the true heroes engaged in an uphill battle against the worst social predators imaginable.

Turning to education, Mr. Speaker, the early learning and childcare system that we built in the Northwest Territories is not working. We've heard this loud and clear from childcare providers. They're still struggling financially. The system isn't working. And now we're locked into a five-year deal. The $3.5 million we negotiated last year will be spent by mid-March. That's a good thing. But I think the expectation was that money would move faster. Day homes have not been brought into the wage grid, and there's no plan to do that, meaning our day home providers are continually treated as a two-tier system where they are unfairly penalized because they're a private business versus a centered-based care. This is something we're hearing from the associations, something we're hearing from the providers, and if we don't make changes this system will collapse. That's what we're being told. That's not my speculation, Mr. Speaker. Voluntary fees are an option. They're an option in other jurisdictions. We've brought it up multiple times. There doesn't seem to be willingness to take that on.

Mr. Speaker, we have been talking a lot about defence and sovereignty, for good reason. Our country's under threat, Mr. Speaker. I'll say again no one is going to undermine our sovereignty. Canada will never be the 51st State but it's going to be a hell of a lot easier for our adversaries to undermine that position if we don't invest in our security. Even though we can't handle that alone as a territorial government, we see the Yukon government and other Arctic organizations investing in think tanks, policy studies, and committees that are building the framework to bring more spending dollars and defence spending into their jurisdictions. That's the kind of leadership we need. We need to have a very clear position that the NWT needs to be at the center of any sovereignty and defence plan that comes forward from the next Government of Canada and that we are the headquarters of these operations, that we have the most investment imaginable. That could bring homes, jobs, infrastructure spending, economic growth and, most importantly, safety and security from foreign adversaries. And I can't believe I'm saying that, Mr. Speaker. Usually we have to deal with much smaller problems in this House, but this is where we find ourselves in this moment.

Mr. Speaker, we still don't have clarity on the carbon tax, and we have a solution available right now. Bill 3 can repeal the carbon tax, move us over to the backstop so when Prime Minister-designate Carney scraps the carbon tax, or the leader of the opposition, if he is successful in his bid for Prime Minister, scraps the carbon tax, we are ready, and it goes away like that. The way we are currently moving, it will be another six, eight months, a year. Who knows? Northerners want this off the books. They're tired of paying a consumer carbon tax. Canadians are tired of paying a consumer carbon tax. We shouldn't be waiting. We should be moving. And we can amend that bill. We can preserve -- we've heard industry likes the rebates system that they use so let's keep that. That's what the committee heard. That's what the Minister's telling us. Let's keep that but get rid of the carbon tax now and be prepared for this change so we can move expediently, because now we're going to have to wait until May to make any changes. Regulations can change things but, again, Northerners want this off the books. They don't want the threat of it coming back, especially for a cash-strapped government.

Mr. Speaker, I've been advocating for the SPCA to receive more money. We know that the NGOs in the Northwest Territories do very important work. Unfortunately, that's not in this budget. I am hopeful, though, that the changes that the executive's putting in will afford them and other organizations the opportunity to access more funding. But I will be keeping an eye on it because we cannot continue to leave NGOs, who are doing this work, this critical work that is often overlooked, spaying and neutering pets, ground search and rescue, that are struggling financially to provide this important public service. So I hope to see that money move forward, and if it doesn't then we're going to have to have a conversation about that in the next budget.

There's no increases for the mineral incentive program. I know the Minister says that it's not the right the time, it doesn't lead to mines, but it's got a times eight economic multiplier. That's the government's own numbers that they're coming up with. And that's money that goes into our economy. That's local spending numbers. That's a great return on investment, and they're saying it doesn't make a difference. Well, if it doesn't make a difference, why is it still in the budget? Either increase this thing that has -- the only thing I could think of higher than that is perhaps energy -- clean energy programs or housing programs are the film credit which has a times nine multiplier. So when we're being told these facts and we don't see it on the paper, it starts to become confusing to me at least when we have a short-term way to create economic growth and invest in the minerals sector and send a clear signal that we're using our own limited resources because it's important to us, we should take that opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot about the $41 million that are coming into this budget. It's part of a greater $150 million plan. I welcome that plan. But here's the thing: That plan's a previous commitment. It's something we secured in the last budget; it was just unfunded. And we have spent a lot of time, in fact 22 hours and 23 minutes, debating a budget, negotiating a budget, to get that money in place. And for me, when you say I have a plan, I'm going to give you the house; you want housing, I'll give you $150 million plan. I expect to see $150 million, not a notional plan that is unfunded. So this is a problem that we -- that the government created for itself by not funding that plan, just putting it on paper. We've now -- or they've now corrected that problem by costing it and funding it. So it is an achievement but it's still only, by my count, 213 new homes. And I could be wrong on that, and I hope I am.

Nunavut is on track to deliver a thousand homes by the end their term as part of their Nunavut 3000 plan. Now, they have other factors that go into it. They have different -- a different beneficiary structure and relationships with Indigenous organizations. But that being said, we could have those same relationships here. We could lean on them. But the relationships between NWT Housing and those groups have been fraught for years, which is why they went to Ottawa in the first place to get bilateral funding. But we have these -- a territorial housing forum. We have all these opportunities to find a way to collectively and collaboratively build housing in the North. I want to see those numbers go up. We have, again by my count -- and I hope I'm wrong -- 3,483 households in the NWT in core need. If you add the retrofits that are planned, we get close to a thousand, just under a thousand I think, new homes and new retrofits for people, for Northerners, which is great, but that's still 2300 homes short. That's the scale of the problem we're doing. And home is fundamental. It's the foundation for everything else that comes.

I believe wholeheartedly in the housing first model, that you need to have a solid foundation of a home before you can address other problems in our life. We have the opportunity to help people heal, to help people grow, and we continue to invest -- it's like pulling teeth to get the government to commit to a promise they made last -- the last government for this money.

Mr. Speaker, turning to the health system -- oh and sorry, I should add our plan, which not every Member accepted but certainly we discussed, and there was enthusiasm from many MLAs, was 500 new homes -- sorry, half that. I think we can do 500. I think we should do 500.

Mr. Speaker, turning to health care, half -- as I said earlier today, half of every month Stanton Hospital is gridlocked. A hospital in gridlock, it refers to a situation where in-patient beds are full preventing patients in the emergency department from being moved to an in-patient unit leading to congestion and delays. This, in addition to one of the -- from what I'm told is the least productive operating rooms in Canada is only exacerbating the stress at the -- the stress and the problems that are going on at Stanton. 60 percent of doctors want to leave the Northwest Territories; nine already have and there's a 50 percent physician vacancy rate. So my question, Mr. Speaker, is where's the plan? Where's the urgency? As far as health spending goes, it hasn't diminished which is -- or significantly. But there's a plan to diminish it in the name of finding efficiencies and finding savings. And I'm sure we can, but until we address the core issues, we're not going to see changes.

The NWT Medical Association is trying. They've written to our Cabinet about the critical need for government intervention to prevent disruptions in primary care and emergency services. They've rolled out programs like MD Connect that brings people together to build community and do things that are wellness related. They host reconciliation and cultural safety events and funding for physicians to individually pursue coaching to deal with stress in their lives and issues that they need professional development on. The College and Association of Nurses of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, or CAN, is working on a pathway for foreign educated nurses to work in the NWT. After this House said it's not possible, they're doing it on their own initiatives and it's moving forward, I think, by July of this year. So I applaud them for that work. So we see this progress going on elsewhere. We know there's a public administrator. But we haven't seen the plan. I haven't even spoken to the public administrator. I know people in my own personal life who have, and I haven't. And I know we're going to see that soon. But it's always been eventually, eventually, eventually, and this should be our top priority, to understand what's going on in our healthcare system and how it's going to change.

Mr. Speaker, I want to turn to another issue that was really a critical flash point in this review and in this sitting, and that's the closure of the CLCs. Now although Aurora College is an arm's length institution, I firmly believe that our government has the resources, the size to move quickly, and the political will to do a lot, whether it's using soft power to influence decisions or whether it's bringing these facilities within the mandate of the departments, there's always something that can be done. And if we don't do something, that's over 40 jobs that are going to be lost in small communities. And these are jobs that are not going to be -- those people are probably not going to stick around in most cases. They're instructors, there's nowhere for them to teach, they'll find other places. It's true the CLCs aren't working. Everyone will say that, including the instructors who work there. But the only way we're going to empower Northerners and achieve reconciliation and end systemic poverty is by investing in a strong education system that starts in the small communities.

We've heard directly from people working in that system and the CLCs, and I'll talk about the one case that I'm personally am aware of in N'dilo and Dettah, that trained over a hundred adult learners in 18 months.

Mr. Speaker, the ISEP program is the introduction to skilled trades essential. This is a new Aurora College program that was created and piloted in N'dilo, Fort Good Hope, and Hay River Reserve in the fall of 2023. Students from all three centres attended that fundamental program, and it was the first time it was the facility was full in many, many years. The program was so successful that the community wanted to run it again in the fall of 2024; however, the college wouldn't support the program so instead they partnered with Yellowknives Dene First Nation and used their instructors to cover the three trade components.

From these two intakes alone, many of the students are now apprentices; some at Diavik, some at Giant Mine, and a few in town. Mr. Speaker, to quote the feedback we've gotten about this, they are cherry picking the stats to make learning centres look bad. When you hear that from, you know, the people who are operating these facilities, who are on the ground working with students, and putting their heart and soul into these programs and getting results, it becomes very hard to know what the reality is on the ground. Are these CLCs working? Are they not? But even if that's the case, what we should be doing is putting a pause on it. We put pause on -- we put many pauses on things in the past, to look at how we can save the ones that are actually doing their jobs and close the ones that are not productive. And I don't think this should be Aurora College's responsibility. They should have never -- I've never supported them operating CLCs. They should be focused on their mandate of becoming a polytechnic. They should be finding resources to support the students they've got and build on successful programs. But they should be honest and clear about the stats that they're coming out of these schools because, again, when we see one side of facts versus another set of facts, it's very hard to know what the reality is on the ground.

Mr. Speaker, as we know, this budget marks the end of affirmative action policies that put Northerners first. Mr. Speaker, I know that this -- the policy's not attached to this budget but this budget will be the inflexion point moving forward for the GNWT. Mr. Speaker, the P2s have been cut and as have priority status for differently-abled people, minority groups, who have contributed so much to our territory. And I know that an easy way to kind of denigrate this position that P2s are upset about this is it's all white people who are very privileged, but for many people, many Northerners, they're hard working groups of new Canadians, the Filipino community that has made a home here and contributes so much to our economy over time.

Mr. Speaker, what else is missing from this budget moving -- moving forward from that piece is a senseless -- sorry, the continued downloading of benefits, the cost of benefits down to the people who they're supposed to serve and I'm, of course, talking about extended health benefits. I did not support the changes in the last budget, and I continue to oppose them now. Again, they're not in here but the benefits are, and -- but they still cost far too much. And if we're adding to the cost of living of even a single constituent, I feel that is a dereliction of duty on my part because I promised to fight the cost of living, not to increase it. And this is a policy decision that has directly increased the cost of living for Northerners and their families and working people in the Northwest Territories. And I know everyone -- we pay good wages in the North, but that doesn't mean people aren't living paycheque to paycheque. And if anyone thinks that's true, they're completely out of touch with the reality most families face, especially as we're looking to cost increases, cost increase at the grocery stores, for homes, for jobs, and potentially supply shortages as well.

Mr. Speaker, so I agree that this was a process, as the finance Minister said, a process that led, after 22 hours and 23 minutes, to this final vote in the chamber today. What we disagree is the nature of this process. This feels more -- this process feels more of one of convenience of a status quo that doesn't want to change rather than one of consensus where we move quickly to meet the moment that Northerners face themselves. And that's very important because when people look up, they're looking for this government for stability and seeing the same old, same old, but everyone getting along is -- we need to do more than that. We need to help people and meet people where they're at, and this budget just doesn't go far enough, so I will not be supporting it. Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Range Lake. To the motion. Member from Frame Lake? Or okay, no, Great Slave.

Mr. Speaker, the Member from Frame Lake was before me so go right ahead.

To the motion. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I chose to take a bit of a different approach to negotiating the budget this year. I've spoken a lot to the need for increased funding going towards housing in this territory, and we discussed that a fair bit during the vote on the capital budget, which I voted against because I didn't feel that we had gone far enough, and as I said at the time, my issue was with the word "notional." If we had removed the word "notional", they would have had my support. Well, the result of our negotiations at this budget where notional has been removed from the plan to fund housing in the Northwest Territories by $150 million over the next three years.

Mr. Speaker, there are many issues in this territory that still matter to me. Many issues that I think we need to resolve. I'll speak to a few of them in a few minutes here. But I wanted to ensure that we focused on this first and foremost because it was my top priority, and by focusing on it and by really driving the point home to our colleagues that this is the top issue, this is the issue for me that I will defeat budget after budget over until we get movement on it, by putting that laser focus, as was said by one of the Ministers said, I will say that the focus worked. Bwe have obtained a commitment from Cabinet to put a significant amount of money towards housing that we hadn't obtained previously. I see this as an achievement.

Mr. Speaker, a while back when we were negotiating the capital budget, it was identified by housing staff that year over year, the housing department is losing -- well, not losing, but there is an infrastructure deficit building in the territory and in order to address that deficit, we would need a minimum of $50 million a year to address it, to not be losing homes and losing ground on any progress that we're making on new builds. We are putting new builds out there. There was new builds happening before we negotiated this amount, but all of those new builds would just be negated by the fact that we're losing more. And so based on this evidence that we got from the housing department, Members started to put forward the idea, well, let's not fall behind; let's address this. Let's put the $50 million out there and let's make sure that we are not losing housing stock. That was very important to me. I really see it as a minimum that we had to achieve. But it's worth noting that we were not there. We were not putting that $50 million into maintenance and improvement year over year in order to not fall behind. So that became a very important thing for me to advocate for, and I'm very glad to see that it's happening today.

Is it perfect, Mr. Speaker? No, it's not. Perfection is a difficult thing to strive for in governance. I dare might say it's impossible, but I do like to strive. But, you know, it's not perfect. I am somewhat concerned that we are -- currently the plan is to finance this money with some debt.

I spoke at length during my reply to the budget address that we need to focus on our priorities, and in implementing our priorities, we need to figure out what we can let go out in order to implement the priorities. And so we haven't fully done that, but I have some more things to say about that.

It's been suggested that we could do more. I don't disagree. But to do that -- we need to be very clear. In order to do that, we either need to take on a significant amount of debt or we're going to need bigger, more substantial, and more painful cuts. That's something I haven't seen a lot of enthusiasm for or specific ideas. And certainly I think there's definitely some areas that we could look at, and I continue to encourage and push Cabinet to make tough decisions, to squeeze every dollar, to look at our priorities and particularly look at the areas that aren't priorities and how we can move money from those areas into the priority areas that we have because there are other priorities now that we've got money in housing that I want to turn to.

But, Mr. Speaker, I've been reflecting a lot on politics lately as I would imagine a lot of Canadians have been doing, as increased chaos takes place below our border and is now crossing the border in the form of tariffs and threats. And something that's really stood out to me is just how valuable stability can be in governance, just how value -- how much value reason has in governance, taking due care, making careful decisions. It is possible to bring out about radical, transformative change. You can break a lot of eggs doing that. I think that arguments can be made for both sides. I would argue that spending $50 million on our infrastructure deficit in housing every year is a pretty significant change from what we were doing previously. It could be argued that it's an incremental change; it's not as big as what Nunavut is doing. But something that I would note is that as we've been studying housing, as we've been engaging with Indigenous governments about housing, as we've seen plans developed around housing, we've heard a lot of different things.

I was referring earlier in this session to the work that the Standing Committee on Social Development has been doing, and much of the advice that we're getting is how to get out of public housing, how to get out of people being dependent on the government for housing and how to create more agency in communities over their own housing plans, how to create economic development by getting people building their own homes. And that's what we've been hearing from IGs and so that looks a little bit different than just investing in public housing. I 100 percent support the $50 million a year because I think it's absolutely necessary. There is a role for public housing in this territory, absolutely. But I do think we need to be a little bit careful about how much we want to double down on that role. We need to learn from the mistakes of the past, and we need to understand that a one-size-fits-all solution is not going to work. I think that's one of the key things that we've been hearing is that there is a housing spectrum, there's a lot of different ways to address this issue, and through a multifaceted approach is how we're going to get to our goal.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased with the progress that we made to bring more funding towards housing in this budget and the next two subsequent budgets. I think it's a big achievement. It's a big achievement for our Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight. I think it's a big achievement for the housing Minister, and it's a big achievement for our Cabinet, and it's a big achievement for consensus government, to be quite frank.

I will say a few things about what's next for me. Housing was my hill to die on as we talked about last year for this budget. Going forward, I don't plan to just sit on my laurels and all the good work is done, Mr. Speaker. I am still concerned about cuts that are being made to education. I don't think that we have a solid enough plan for workforce development and, in particular, the role that education needs to play in economic development in this territory. So that's where I'm going to be placing pressure next.

I want to be talking about some of the things that the Member for Range Lake raised today, stabilizing childcare. That is absolutely an important issue. I think it's something that we need to continue to pressure the Minister on and, most importantly, work with the Minister on and work with the childcare sector to find solutions that are going to work with the funding arrangements that have been made with the federal government with that money that's desperately needed to ensure that families can afford childcare, Mr. Speaker.

I too am interested in reforming primary care, had a lot to say during this session about how we can find -- how we can set better targets, more specific targets, and get clear about what we mean by reforming primary care and, in particular, what we are working towards.

Mr. Speaker, I care about economic development also. That's one of the reasons that I've been pressuring the Minister of ECE on changes to the waters regs and why I'm very excited about the work that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment has been doing on reviewing the regulatory framework. That work is in the process of being concluded, and we'll be reporting back on that in the spring and I'm very excited about that because I think it can -- there's some recommendations coming from that that could really change the way the regulatory system operates and in particular how the GNWT relates to that system. And one of our priorities and one of the mandate items for this government is to improve regulatory, but I think that we have had a lot of difficulty around seeing exactly what we mean by improvement and so I'm hoping that that project helps put words and specifics to what we mean by that.

So that's all I have in my notes, Mr. Speaker. I think it's clear from this -- from this speech that I do support the budget. I'm very happy and thank my Cabinet colleagues for the commitment that they've made on housing. I think it's a big achievement for this Assembly. And I really look forward to seeing the results of it. My understanding is that -- from talking to folks who are in the world of housing, that this kind of investment is going to make a big difference and people are going to feel it on the ground. That's the kind of thing that I see as an achievement of this kind of work, is when I see a constituent being put in a new home. So I'll leave my comments at that, Mr. Speaker. I am supportive of this budget. And thank you.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm a big fan of brevity so I'll keep my comments brief. First and foremost, I want to thank the chair and deputy chair of AOC who have done an amazing job negotiating for this side of the House this time and every time, Mr. Speaker. I also want to thank the Minister of Finance for her hard work as well. I appreciate her making pragmatic choices in the spirit of consensus and collaboration. I also want to thank the staff of the Assembly and the public service who worked tirelessly to support this entire process.

Mr. Speaker, I will support this budget, and I will tell you why. It is a momentous task to balance fiscal responsibility and make strategic social investments into a core priority of this Assembly, which is housing. This budget is proof to me that our Cabinet is listening and doing what they can with the resources that they have. And even a bit beyond, Mr. Speaker, as they're willing to go into what I've been calling good debt for social investment which is something I explicitly requested in my reply to this budget.

We are remaining smart about our spending for the battles we cannot yet see, Mr. Speaker, but also tackling our priorities. We are spending on core social needs for the benefit of our residents which is something we talk about every single day in this House, and I am glad that we are making notable progress. While we have a lot further to go, the tortus may yet win. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the motion. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Excuse me, we're going to have to start replacing our water with red bull if we keep having these long days.

Mr. Speaker, as one of my colleagues have said, my colleague from Range Lake, we spent over 20 hours on -- 22, sorry, yes. So I'm going to touch on some of the negotiated items in my response today. I won't go through them all; I'm going to leave that to the Minister as she's going to obviously articulate those when she speaks to the bill. But I want to talk a little more about the process, Mr. Speaker, and how we got here and why are we here, I guess, Mr. Speaker.

We're all elected officials and we'll hear the saying all the time, if you're an elected official you have to have thick skin, and maybe so.
But, Mr. Speaker, we're also people. We're passionate residents from our communities, from our ridings, that get up every day and go to work, just like everyone else. It just so happens that our work, Mr. Speaker, is in politics. And to do that work, Mr. Speaker, you often carry a heavy load. You know, you're carrying the expectations and the issues from our constituents in our respective ridings, and we carry those on our shoulders when we come in here, and we take that serious. And it's often a heavy load, Mr. Speaker. And if you're from a smaller community, it often can be heavier. And I'm not -- that's not saying that the larger regions or the capital, Mr. Speaker, don't have important issues that they're carrying as well but, I mean, in the smaller communities you have issues where you have constituents who are regularly having to do medical travel. You have constituents that don't have access to government services like you do in the larger centres. You know, there's limited opportunities for employment in some of the smaller communities. And those things can be a heavy burden. And, you know, the Members from those ridings have to, you know, come into this House carrying that.

And, Mr. Speaker, you know as well while we're vast in size geographically, we are small in numbers and our ridings are typically small. And every Member here will know if you go to the grocery store to pick up a carton of milk on what typically would be a five or ten-minute task, Mr. Speaker, likely will take an hour, maybe two, when you have to go and do that because you're regularly -- I mean, you're -- typically, your constituent's your neighbour or your workers are your neighbours and they can reach out to come and see you on a regular basis, and that -- and that, you know, makes our job not that much more difficult but certainly we're always engaged with constituents which, again, is very important.

So, Mr. Speaker, we ought to be and, indeed, I feel some -- it's our job, and often we do, is that we help carry that load for -- you know, for our Members, for our colleagues, and we do that. It's something that I think we can improve on but certainly we do that. And when I look at -- in this budget, I look at the $41 million, $50 million, and $50 million, so the overall $150 million that are being -- that's being allocated for housing. I think that's a good example where we're all willing to carry that load for each other. It's something you've heard in this House. We said it through Members' statements. Obviously, we've brought it up in the last budget when we talked about the notional plan. This has been a priority and likely the number priority of this House. It's something that we had focused on. And, you know, and I think to get to this point, it's not a small ask. I mean, it's a lot of money. It's not -- you know, it's likely we're going to have to take out some debt to do that, but that's good debt. That's capital infrastructure debt, and I think it's important that -- you know, that we note that. You know, this means that there's more affordable housing across the Northwest Territories. This means if you're a tradesperson, if you're -- you know, if you're looking for work, that's going to increase that work. There's an economic benefit to this, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, and that also means that homes that have sat vacant -- I've spoken to people who work for housing corp in my riding, and certainly in other ridings, you know, where you get -- sorry. Are you -- sorry, where you get -- sorry, I'll look over here.

We have vacant units there, Mr. Speaker, that are -- that have been vacant for years and not because they're not habitable but because we haven't had the M and I funding, the funding that we need the maintenance to get that work done. And when -- you know, when I have -- I have people reaching out to me from my region after reading the article saying there's going to be $50 million put into housing, they're ecstatic. They're saying, jeez, I -- you know, give me a couple of million and I can get several people put into their homes. And -- you know, and that's, you know, important work, and it's an important effect. And it also affects not only people in trades or to provide employment through contractors and otherwise. You're looking at from sandwich shops to hardware stores to this kind of spending does have an economic impact in the region. So it's very, very important.

Mr. Speaker, consensus did get us here. I know we've had a lot of conversation around consensus. And I know, even those who feel the budget didn't go far enough, Mr. Speaker, and I know there are Members here that feel like, you know, this budget is not far enough, we could have done more, and I understand that and I respect that. But, Mr. Speaker, make no mistake, everyone at AOC makes significant contributions to the final budget we have in front of us today. Everyone had an opportunity to speak and, again, what we didn't get, you know, in our ridings, you're never going to get everything you want in your riding, or our budget would triple, I'm sure, to do that. But it was through consensus that we got here. I mean, obviously, there were some very heated discussions and debate along the way. But, Mr. Speaker, we are AOC, and as much as it behooves us to follow our mandate to withhold Cabinet accountable, it also behooves us to support the work that Cabinet does. We chose them. They're our Cabinet. We elected them. We put them in there to be our leadership group. And we have to put some faith in what they do while holding them accountable, of course, is our mandate, but we do have to work -- and that's consensus, we have to work with them.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, no one in this House got everything they wanted for their riding. You know, for me, I mean, I'm going to continue to advocate for LNG. You've heard me say this in the House many, many times, we need a source of revenue. We have a source of revenue set in the ground up there, 19 trillion cubic feet of it. And we need -- we have a report that says it's feasible to do that, and we have to continue, and where I will continue to push for that and to push for our natural resources to get exported, to get that gas out of the ground to provide some royalties in here.

I'm going to continue to push for our childcare centres. I brought that up in the House. And, you know, we've got the $3.5 million last year and, yes, it's slow to roll out. There is more work to be done here, and I'm going to take the Ministers and the Cabinet and her commitment to look to find a way to include day homes and to find a way that we can make sure that we have a sustainable daycare and childcare in our communities.

The community learning centres, we've had a lot of conversation around that. And again, I agree, we either are ones that are working, ones that need work. And I know that the Minister understands that is our mandate to provide, you know -- learning, adult basic education, adult learning, and I'm hopeful that when we're coming back in May, I'm excited to see in it the next sitting what that plan will be to ensure that there's continuity there and it's not just one and done and shut down, as the college has decided to do.

Arctic sovereignty, you've heard me in this House, and I'm still -- I'll still be advocating to the Premier to get our Arctic sovereignty council set up which the Yukon has done. They also have a security and university down there now. I forget the name of the course that they're offering down there, what they're doing, but, again, it's a council they're working on their security down there. And I'll continue to do that.

And I'll continue to advocate for working with Indigenous governments closer, whether it's through housing as we've talked about here, whether it was through pooling funds, or whether it's working together on projects, again, a key piece of what we do.

But having said that, Mr. Speaker, I'm satisfied that the supplemental appropriations to come and the commitments on policy review and renewal that the Minister of Finance will outline when she speaks to this bill -- and I won't get into every detail. I'll let the Minister do that. And I think those are significant. And for those reasons, Mr. Speaker, I will be voting in favour of the budget today.

I'd like to thank my colleagues, a special thank you to the Member from Deh Cho, our deputy chair, who's been negotiating this budget with me on behalf of AOC with the Minister, her wisdom, I certainly appreciate that, her ability to relate to what it's like to live in a small community and ensure that small communities do matter and that their voices are heard at that able.

I appreciate that. I appreciate Cabinet. I appreciate the conversations I've had with Minister Kuptana around housing. And I appreciate obviously the Minister Wawzonek, the Minister of Finance for her -- someone already said, for her pragmatism, for being pragmatic, for sitting down for her wisdom and to -- you know, to work to get to where we are. And it wasn't easy. And I'm sure there's Members on Cabinet, Mr. Speaker, that didn't get everything they wanted for their department or their riding either, and, you know -- and that's -- and conversations I've had with Cabinet will say the same thing, you know, if everybody got everything they wanted, we'd triple our budget.

And finally, again, thank you to my colleagues at AOC. I appreciate that not everyone is happy with everything we got. But I do want to thank them for their voice, for the -- for allowing myself and the Member from the Deh Cho to go and negotiate this budget. Again, this is -- this is huge. The $150 million we got I think is a huge win for this government. Not for this committee, but for this government and for the people of the Northwest Territories. We're going to see waitlists go down. We're going to see more people moving into homes, either new homes or renovated homes. That was key as the Member from Frame Lake has said. It was a big piece for us, and I'm super happy that we got there, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. To the motion. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will be voting against the budget today when I cast my vote. It's not against the working relationship we built in this Assembly or against our hardworking civil servants. It is for my constituents. They need a budget that truly supports them and a government that listens. The people of Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh tell me -- people, every day, that the government is not working for them, and I agree. I cannot stand by while my communities lose their young people to addictions and mental illness and why elders are forced to leave their home community due to lack of local medical services or long-term care facilities.

I cannot stand by as my people struggle with the high cost of living. And I mentioned in this House, Mr. Speaker, that -- on numerous occasions on the 19th and 20th Assembly talking about the community of Lutselk'e in my riding about a winter road. And the high cost of living in that community is very high. And instead of looking for solution, it seems like we continue to put up barriers.

So Mr. Speaker, I struggle with the idea of the cost of groceries in the small communities. Everything's flown into the community of Lutselk'e, and it's very expensive. And jobs become harder to find. This government could do better, Mr. Speaker. The land is rich in resources, and the people are rich in culture, traditions, and traditional knowledge. But the poor living continues do not reflect the true wealth. Don't take my words for it, Mr. Speaker. Look at the government's own statistics. More homes are needed than ever before. More children are living in poverty and more food insecurities continues to rise. Homes are falling into disrepair as the public housing backlog grows. High school graduation rates for Dene students are well below the territorial average, and employment in the public service remains out of reach. These numbers will only grow worse if this government continues to do nothing.

Mr. Speaker, as this chronic underfunding isn't enough for my riding of Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh is now facing a funding cut while the territorial debt limit has increased by over a billion dollars. Where's this funding going, Mr. Speaker? Not to the Dene communities. We couldn't even keep up our own community learning centres open, and the department blamed enrolment rates, blaming the students. These centres have to be more widely used if their programs were more relevant and culturally appropriate for my communities. So all the money saved through the budget cuts and borrowed debt says in the GNWT headquarters because this government can't imagine making decisions without an ever-growing workforce to commission studies and assessments without community input. We see this government knows best attitude every department. Mr. Speaker, that draft -- they draft their plans, ask questions later. Then they hire a consultant to tell them what went wrong. When I bring up the priorities, my chief and Metis presidents and elders, I'm told that civil servants, they never heard those concerns. That's because they don't truly consult Indigenous governments. Then I'm told that whatever priority they've ignored is not real priority but a political priority as if I'm asking for a handout for the Dene people.

This is the same old story, Mr. Speaker, despite promises of changes after the last election. The Premier, when he talked about his 50-year vision for the cooperation and thriving self-government, or the deputy Premier vision of the GNWT working with empowered and accountable regional authorities, focused on Indigenous reconciliation through the dialogues and relationship building. What about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People that were passed here? And it's a mandate for First Nations to self-determination, autonomy, and decision-making.

UNDRIP may have been passed in spirit but the implementation is still missing, and we see the consequences of that inaction in this budget, with lack of consultation and cooperation with Indigenous governments, closing the CLCs in Dene communities exposes all the false promises.

Mr. Speaker, we all want a dynamic, collaborative North where Metis and treaty rights are respected, but this budget is not known how we build the future. This budget kicks their can down the road to the next government, leaving the problems for the next Assembly to solve. Sadly, this not the fault that any one Minister or department, it is how our government operates. Our mandate for change conflicts with the GNWT mandate which seems designed to outlast any political leader's agenda. The stubborn refusal to accept change is a result of our territory not having a Constitution, which we need, to force the GNWT uphold the treaty and Metis rights and the international rights to self-determination.

But until a Constitution is in place, many of the changes my people are demanding for their families and communities will not happen. So today, Mr. Speaker, I am voting against this budget, disappointed that despite everyone's hard work in this chamber, we are not making progress for my people and for all Indigenous communities in the North. Some may say my colleagues and I are playing politics, but my politics are about action. The only way to fight against the politics of inaction is by taking a hard look at our own territory and this government and the results we're getting. Without change, all the hard work means very little. Just the same old social problems week in, week in, and year after year since 1967, no action.

Mr. Speaker, I will keep working for my constituents no matter what. I will speak the truth every day as long as I have the privilege of being a Member of this Legislative Assembly for good people -- for the good people of the Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm attacking -- I am attacking the outcome that hurt my people.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, I put an invitation out to the infrastructure Minister to come to my four communities and meet with our Indigenous governments. Let's put on the table what their needs are: Dettah, we need a new school. N'dilo, we need a new band office, a new gymnasium. Lutselk'e, we need a winter road. Fort Resolution, we need a new water treatment plant. We need programming for our young people. Dust control in Lutselk'e is bad during the summer months. I hear that from our people every day when I go back to my communities. They text me; they phone me; I meet with the leadership. When I bring it here, sometimes I feel like I'm talking for nothing.

But I have the privilege of working with some really good colleagues around the table, even on Cabinet side. When I come across to say that these are things that I'm looking for my community, it's no disrespect to my colleagues or Cabinet. That's what I'm sent here to do, to speak for the people in my communities. Housing is one component. It only is going to fix up part of the problem that exists in our small communities.

We are in a housing crisis here in the Northwest Territories. I sat on the AFN housing committee for three years at the national level. And right now we're probably pushing over 200,000 homes short in Canada for all First Nations. Here in the North, we're probably about 10,000 homes short. But yet, you know, through the progress that we have here today, I can't even get the housing corporation -- or Housing NWT to fix one of my Members in Lutselk'e sewage tank because it's -- backs up 16, 17 buckets of 5-gallon pails of sewage for a single mother, a cancer member who's in remission and struggles. And I try to figure a way how we can try to address some of these issues, it's really tough.

The young people in my community, I mentioned before, I've been to so many funerals, and it really hits home when it's our young people. So we got to do something about the addiction issues. We got to do something about the RCMP stepping up in our small communities to do their jobs. This government pays $80 million to the RCMP. I bring it to the Cabinet. I bring to the Premier. I bring it to the justice Minister. And I still get calls from leadership in my community. So we have big problems here in the Northwest Territories, and the small communities need to be heard. And it's my job to bring it here. But I'm also trying to figure out a way how we could work with Cabinet to look for solutions.

One example is that even though Housing NWT's got a $199 million budget, that's just to pay for the operation of existing LHOs and public housing units. But I knew that there's a lot of homes in our community that need -- that home needs homeownership repairs. So I had to start thinking outside the box as a solution and put forward an idea to the finance Minister and to the Minister of housing. And it was a really good idea. And the idea is that we want to go into our four communities to inspect the homes.

In the early days, we had the HAP unit that was provided by housing -- NWT Housing Corporation funded through CMHC and Government of Canada. That ended in 1993. But since then, a lot of our homeownerships are reaching the lifecycle of 50 years and if we don't do something now, the NWT fire marshal could go into those homes in those communities and shut it down because it's no longer meeting code. So through the help of the Cabinet, we were able to get some money to do inspections. And I suggested that we work together and put forward a proposal to the Government of Canada to find money so that we could address those homeownership units' repairs because a lot of those homes are beyond economic repair and we have mold issues, etcetera. So those are the solutions that I'm talking about. We need to work together instead of putting up barriers so that it makes it harder for us to help our people. And I said this in committee as well, often that government policies are overriding our constitutional protected treaty rights because Government of Canada funds this government too as well for the Indigenous, Metis, and Inuits. That Mace talks about being the Crown.

So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say thank you to all my colleagues. I know we had a long session. And it's not often I see my friend over there, Member from Range Lake -- Frame Lake, the other day didn't say much because he was tired. A lot of people don't know this but all our colleagues here, they work really hard behind the scenes along with Cabinet. Sometimes I come across being too hard, but at the end of the day is that I want to look for solutions, and I'm encouraging everybody to work together.

Some people say that you're almost like an elder, and I listen to the elders in my communities. I was -- been at a lot of meetings where the elders tell us what to say and -- but at the end of the day, we got to respect each other. So to me, Mr. Speaker, I'm just here for the people of my riding, speaking for them because the issues that we have are real. We got to look for solutions instead of putting up barriers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Colleagues, being respectful of the time and giving a bit of a break for our translators, we'll have a brief adjournment.

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(Audio) me as Speaker under Rule 2.2(4), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily hours of adjournment to consider the business of the House.

Motions. Or to the motion. Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will be voting in favour of the budget. Recapping, before I continue, I would pay respect to all the previous presentations from my colleagues on this side of the House and the other side of the House. And when I look back at the very beginning of the Minister of Finance's announcement 13 months ago on Restoring Balance, that was the approach that we took, and knowing through experience there's going to be some hard decisions to be made. And the cost overruns have really got to be reflected to the hardships faced by the Sahtu region, particularly during last summer's events. But through collaboration, I was extremely pleased to see the Ministers coming forth with assistance of business relief by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of ITI. And the homes coming to our communities which really says it's a collaborative approach when I look at the community of Deline, and it's the same high cost of operating to my constituency budget, Mr. Chair. It's a fly-in region. I can only seasonally drive to these five communities that I represent. So one can understand sustainability and the challenges on a high cost of living in the Sahtu. But through collaboration with Cabinet, we ease that tension of high cost of living during the no barging season and the evacuation of Fort Good Hope last June. Easing the tension and the stress generated by families forced to leave their community, the Premier travelled to Norman Wells on our request to help comfort the victims of the evacuation caused by the Fort Good Hope fire which came in within a kilometer of the nearest home. So you can feel the stressful tension that was going on during that evacuation. And we were saddened to hear during the evacuation that we lost a chopper pilot defending our community. And we're getting assistance from Cabinet and every Minister throughout the last 15 months but going back into our first Assembly budget, and we got two more to go. But it was accepted by myself, having gone through that, that Restoring Balance is going to be reductions. And analyzing and prioritizing the need for physical assistance is really a chore that I have to pay contribute to Cabinet in doing so.

However moving ahead, as said, I support this budget knowing the fact that reductions, sunsets, forced growth, is a decision made by the stakeholders of this Assembly. So in short, I respect my colleagues' opinions, and I look forward to being resilient and, in particular, implementing what we have. We have a budget, and we set aside a nominal amount that we can feel comfortable in saying this is going to be our surplus moving forward. Hopefully that is not jeopardized by the disasters the NWT has seen in various parts of the NWT over the last several years placing more forced growth decisions on disaster recovery. All said, we still have the avenue of federal engagements to ease that physical cost in operating our 33 communities. So in short, thank you, Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting the budget. Mahsi.

Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. To the motion. Member from Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will be supporting the budget. I'm happy with the housing funding that's going to be distributed within the Northwest Territories but there's still work to be done on distribution, especially within my region after I looked at where the preliminary distribution dollars were going, it didn't look very bright for the communities of my region. So there is room for improvement. So I am happy with the housing allocation. But there's room for improvement in other areas, especially with the -- my favorite, the income support program. You know, we have to work at finding a way where we can get our -- those recipients to be part of the economy. 15 percent of my residents in the Beaufort Delta are on income support so I'd like to find -- you know, get the Indigenous governments and other agencies involved in trying to get funding from ECE to create programs where they can build their self-esteem, where they can join the workforce, and be partners with the rest of the Northwest Territories in building our economy, especially in the Mackenzie Delta where unemployment is high.

Closures of the community learning centres was a shock. I've stated in our meetings that -- committee meetings that this was ongoing since June of 2023 and then within a couple of weeks, they just dropped this on the whole NWT. We wouldn't need the adult learning centres if improvements to the kindergarten to grade 12 was put -- was made better rather than socially promoting our students and sending them to income support where they make a living off it. So kindergarten to grade 12 is where everything starts. We have to make improvements in our education system. It's pretty sad to see a graduate from a recent grade 12 program and see him at the front of the class having problems with simple arithmetic, and you expect these students to go virtually learning? It's a hard task to even comprehend.

The health care, you have to improve that within the smaller communities. About every week, I'm getting notifications from the regional health department saying that one of the medical -- one of the health centres are closed because due to staff shortage. They'd be open only for emergency cases.

And I'm getting calls about medical travel accommodations. We need collaboration with these -- with Cabinet, with the Minister, to bring clarity for the residents of the Northwest Territories when they're travelling; who's obligated to take these tasks on? We need clarity.

We got to find solutions for what I've been trying to bring forth the last few sessions is the crisis we're in with the drugs and alcohol. The biggest places where they're setting up shop is right in with Housing NWT's public housing units, and the local authorities or Housing NWT can't do nothing. It's sad when you see you go past a person's house, and you know there's criminal activity there. But I've tried, I went to the RCMP myself. I held interagency meetings. Our hands are just tied. We can't do nothing but, you know, hope and pray for the best of our people and, hopefully in the future, a budget will come out where everyone is happy. But that's impossible. You can't -- I can't get everything from this budget that I want, that the residents of my constituency want, but we can be optimistic and hopefully we can negotiate throughout the year and try get programs to heal our people to make them feel better about themselves, be part of the workforce, be well educated. Education is just a big factor; it's where everything starts. Then you get into alcohol and drugs and it affects every department of this government. Every department, alcohol and drugs effects.

Collaboration and consultation with communities is a big one. This government has to consult with the residents of the Northwest Territories in seeing what they want, what's hurting them. There's a lot of people out there hurting. Even just walking -- walking home from after session, you see people are struggling. It's hard to see that. I don't know them, but I tell you I brought this up before. I was in their shoes for five months until my cousin Stanley, he rescued me. I would have been probably still there because I didn't feel like I was an alcoholic, but I was surviving. And I think that's what these people are doing. You just have to give them a little encouragement because they all have potential. They all have work ethics. But they just -- they're stuck in a rut right now.

But I will be supporting this budget. But, you know, there is room for improvement as the year goes on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Mackenzie Delta. To the motion. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the commitment that the government will be spending $50 million on housing during each of the next three years is significant. We have been working towards this since the beginning of this Assembly. This wasn't something that we just came up with a few weeks ago. And we've been engaged in advocacy for housing both through our committees as Regular Members and in individual meetings with the Minister, that I know many of us have had, trying to figure out a practical path forward on this. So we're starting to see the fruits of those labours, and I am encouraged.

I do believe we still have a lot of work to do, particularly around figuring out how we can better support people who are currently in public housing to move towards homeownership. That's a message I've heard strongly and repeatedly, especially from my colleagues representing small communities. I think a big piece of what we need there is to get going on large -- a large-scale amount of repairs and renovations in public housing to allow people to take over units and own them as their own. And I do expect that at least some of this new money will be supporting those efforts. But that will also take significantly ramping up our supply of tradespeople, any apprenticeships, and the building of workforce capacity to get those kinds of repairs done. So this is not simply a matter of dedicating a certain number of millions of dollars to big ticket items. It's about putting the various pieces of our mandate priorities together, focusing our resources on programs that all lead towards the same goal, and I do think that one worthy and inspiring goal could be increasing rates of homeownership in the territory.

Now, the issue of community learning centres still sits in a difficult position. Aurora College's announcement (audio break). *INSERT

(audio) this has been my first year working in -- doing the job that I'm doing. And going through a lot of -- seeing a lot of things change, seeing a lot of things happen and not happen, the drugs are in our communities, they're devastating lives of our people, health care. I'm happy that we have the -- we passed a motion to allow medical escorts. Now I don't know how that's going to work out, but when it does work out people will be happy about that. We had some little wins. And I reiterate what a lot of my colleagues said, there were things that happened, we got some things, some things we didn't get. But the way I look at it, we got some little wins and things happen slowly. We can't get things, everything we want right now. But all in all, I was sent here to work for the people in my riding. It's been a tough -- it's been a tough time for us. But we're working -- we're working together to make sure that our people get what they -- what they need. It's not easy. We've had a lot of -- a lot of death in our community -- our communities in the last while. So people are hurting. And here we're dealing with -- we're dealing with budgets and having to deal with even our own personal stuff, our own personal issues around our families and stuff and yet we're working to help our people.

In regards to housing, I'm happy what we got, the $30 million for the next three years. Health care, like I mentioned, a motion to get medical escorts. However, we have the issues of drug and alcohol issues in our communities. But all in all, Mr. Speaker, we have to work together to find solutions for the things that we're dealing with. Even though things may look bleak to some, I say, Mr. Speaker, while my colleague sees a glimpse -- I see a glimpse of hope for our people working with this government, and my colleagues on the other side, the Cabinet, if you work with them, they will work with you. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I'm standing here to say I'm going to be supporting this budget. Thank you.