Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I could put a title on my Member’s statement today it would “Why?” Why is our North rich in highly valued natural resources but our disjointed regulatory regime discourages exploration and development? Why are industries that thrive south of the 60th parallel and create enormous economy and prosperity non-existent in the Northwest Territories? Why do we have abundant renewable resources in the area of forests, fisheries and wildlife, and we extract next to no industry from these resources? Why can our neighbours to the west in the Yukon generate millions of dollars in economy through tourism, and we lag so far behind? Why do we allow projects like the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline to languish when our people need jobs and we try to muddy the waters by using the pipeline to leverage political agendas?
The list of why goes on and on. We have some very serious questions to ask ourselves here in the Northwest Territories. I guess Ottawa will keep sending us the money that we need to keep the status quo, but I don’t think people should be satisfied with the status quo. I think our people want more, they expect more, and we better get some answers to these questions.
