Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve been here for three years and I’m going to continue to dwell on the issue that Hay River needs dredging. The community of Hay River is the hub of the North. We do a lot of transportation; we have a railhead there. We’ve been asking for many years to get dredging in the Hay River.

It used to be a federal responsibility. We’ve been talking, I’ve been talking, my colleagues have been talking about dredging requirements. This year has been extremely low. As everybody knows, water levels are low everywhere, but now it is a critical situation.

Now we need our government to go to the federal government to get the money for dredging. We know it’s a federal responsibility. Our government

has told us that several times, but we’ve been trying to encourage the government to find ways, get a cost analysis, figure exactly what we’ve got. The government is handing out money everywhere else, $20 million here, $10 million there, $40 million there.

We need dredging in the Hay River now. Not soon, not later, now.

I will have questions for the Minister of Transportation. I know he’s had meetings with the federal Minister this summer. Was dredging of the Hay River on that agenda? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is good news or bad news, which do you want to start with? I’m going to end on a positive note, so I’ll start with the bad news, I guess.

Just like the Members here have indicated, I would have the same and similar concerns about our fiscal plan going forward. The government has spent a lot of money on fire suppression this year. Now we’re talking about an accelerated plan for the Tuk to Inuvik highway, which in one way is a good news story. We’re getting the project done quicker, but how do we afford that speed and, I guess, what gets run over by doing it faster? The problem that I’m having with these big projects is the fact that we do them, and we try to keep them on schedule or ahead of schedule, and then contractors and northern benefits get run over. When we approve these projects we think, okay, well, we’re going to have a major project for the Northwest Territories that’s going to have economic benefit for the region, for the territory. Now we accelerate it. How much more employment is there? How much more contractors or equipment has to come out of the South in order to handle that short-term acceleration? I am very concerned with that, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bromley indicated education and the low volume of capital expenditures there. We have limited expenditures in that area, especially when people are seeing the government spending $20 million here, $40 million there. Yet some people are trying to ask for money to upgrade, not a school, but upgrade community health. Mr. Menicoche talked about that a couple of days ago. Everyone is comparing our activities to our expenditures. Every time we hear someone saying why can’t we fund a handivan when we just gave $20 million for a rate rider, we’ve got all kinds of people asking questions about that type of expenditure when we spend big amounts of money at the drop of a coin. Yet people have been begging and pleading for stuff to be on the red list for years, then we go and do major expenditures. It fits into our fiscal strategy all of a sudden. It fits into our $100 million buffer miraculously, Mr. Chair.

One of the other areas of concern are the French schools. We have a French school and we’re going

to court. One of the biggest expenditures is putting gymnasiums into these facilities. Yet we can go ahead and spend $20 million or $40 million. We divide communities and school boards against each other for the minimal amounts of upgrading the French schools.

Obviously, I have concerns and questions about the air tanker upgrade. What announcements have we done? What are the costs currently? Have we looked at a phase-out approach or are we just going to go out and buy a whole bunch more new units and figure that’s going to be our solution, not knowing what those new units are going to work like? Is there a phased approach we can look at? I would be interested in hearing some of the debate on what the department has done there in ENR.

I guess on a good note, it is good to see us investing back into the territory. The capital budget has more economic development, I would think because we are going to spend more, but again, I am concerned about that accelerated process of a couple of those projects.

It is good to see us investing in chipsealing the highways. There are several roads in my riding where it’s an opportunity, an opportunity to see more tourism. Mr. Menicoche talks about Highway No. 7. We’re looking at doing some stuff there and looking at doing several highways. I’m looking forward to that.

Obviously, it’s good to see us putting into the health facilities throughout the Territories. We are completing the large-scale project in Hay River. The mistake of this government not putting in extended care beds into Hay River when they are taking them out of the existing facility is being alleviated by this current budget coming up. So those are some of the positive sides.

Deferred maintenance is dropping. The department indicated to us that maintenance that we haven’t been doing has been dropping.

It’s good to see us putting more money into our parks. In the South Slave, we see a lot of road traffic, and those facilities are very important to tourism.

I guess those are general comments, Mr. Chair. We will have specific questions on each department. Those are some of my concerns and some of my appreciations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Finance is looking at things they’ve studied before. They say we’re stable, we haven’t changed anything. That’s right. We haven’t changed anything. We’re looking to promote 2,000 people to come to the Northwest Territories.

What’s the indicator to bring them here? What is the government going to do to promote the Northwest Territories as a place to live and reduce the cost of living? Maybe we don’t have to stay the same. Maybe we reduce the cost of gas taxes so that people can come.

What is the government going to do in the future to encourage people to come to the Northwest Territories?

If that analysis has been done before, what is the Department of Finance doing currently in taxation to help the Northerners with the cost of living to put more money into their… Are there ways that we can reduce taxes to help people in the Northwest Territories currently?

In the cost of living issue currently before us, why would the Minister of Finance not be talking to the federal government about this situation to allow a bigger tax break for Northerners, especially when we have a declining population?

Sorry, Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear that response.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, the cost of living in the Northwest Territories has escalated to a point of crisis. My questions today – and I understand the government is working on an Energy Strategy – will be to the Department of Finance Minister.

My first question is: Has the government talked to the federal government about northern residency deductions and increasing that allowable tax deduction for Northerners so that more money can go into their pockets to assist with cost of living?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you all know, the residents of the Northwest Territories this summer hit a wall, the wall of cost of living. They’re concerned with the rising cost of living in the Northwest Territories.

It saddened me this summer to hear a lot of long-term Northerners talking about leaving the Northwest Territories because of the cost of living. The low water rates and the potential 13 percent increase in the cost of power was one of those things that basically hit the wall and they said, that’s

it, we have a crisis, we need to leave, we’re talking about leaving.

Yesterday the Premier announced, and last month they announced, that they were going to pay the $20 million to eliminate that 13 percent. But that’s only a quick fix.

Yesterday the Premier talked about an Energy Charrette, and we need to look at that energy cost because that’s one of the biggest factors. We need to look at alternative energies, biomass options, conservation of energy as well as the natural gas and LNG options out there for us in the Northwest Territories to lower the cost of living for the taxpayers.

But energy is only one situation. We need to look at our taxation. Our Cabinet wants to talk about increasing the population by 2,000 people over the next few years. It used to be that people came to the Northwest Territories as an opportunity. But the problem is that the cost of living is rising and the cost of taxation is rising, so the money that they’re taking home is decreasing.

We need to talk to the federal government about increasing northern residency deductions. We need to look at other options for taxation. We need to lower the cost of gas. We need to lower personal taxes. We need to lower small business taxes. The NWT needs to be the place of opportunity again. We need to take action on the cost of living in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question is on maybe an evaluation of the existing or the operations this year.

Have we seen anywhere we can do some cost savings, economies of scale when we have larger fire seasons, and going forward, how do we evaluate that?