Debates of February 10, 2005 (day 33)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my statement today will be on the budget address by the honourable Member for Inuvik, Mr. Roland. On the mortgaging of the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker, I quote from the Finance Minister in his budget address today, from page 5 under Fiscal Strategy, “However, just like a family is prepared to borrow to buy a house if they can afford the monthly mortgage payment, we are prepared to borrow to make necessary capital investments."

Mr. Speaker, this is a powerful quote from the budget, especially in times like this in the Northwest Territories. We have a tremendous increase on developing our resources in the Northwest Territories. We understand that millions are leaving the North, there is an increase in exploration development and finding the big ticket items such as the Mackenzie Valley pipeline.

Mr. Speaker, we need to get our house in order. Cut the waste, go back to the basics that will ensure that as northerners we can expect a living known to no other place in Canada that we enjoy and can live well in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, we are mortgaging our home in the Northwest Territories and like any other families who are in the same situation, a lot of commitments have to be secured, priorities listed, a budget must be developed and followed as closely as possible. Action plans must be developed to be carried out. Long-term planning is part of that vision. Relationships must be built on trust, respect and the ability to deal with the uncertainty.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, we must be willing to mortgage our home on our income, and that, Mr. Speaker, I await this government to bring to this House good news that will happen in the coming months with the federal government. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to take this opportunity to make a few comments about the budget that was delivered by the Minister of Finance. First of all, just a general comment. Being part of this huge bureaucracy of government, I’m sort of jaded to think that it really doesn’t matter what one individual thinks and I must tell you when I was listening to this budget I could not believe how much of Floyd Roland I saw in this document and I’m thinking individuals do make a difference. I may be wrong, maybe I shouldn’t bet dollars on it, but I think the second paragraph of page 18 probably was personally written by Mr. Roland and probably the last sentence. I’m not going to get into the details of that. I’ll get people to look it up.

Anyhow, I just want to say that it speaks to the discipline and hard work that we had to do to get to almost like where we were. Four months ago we were looking at complete pictures and we thought that we had to go to the Assembly rough cut, and it’s easy to forget now that we are almost at a status quo budget how hard it was. So I want to acknowledge the work of the Minister and the Cabinet and everybody here for coming up with a budget that’s not as bad as it could have been.

Hear! Hear!

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Oh, my God, that is such a compliment. Mr. Speaker, I know that this is not a comfort to those who are adversely affected by this budget and I want to acknowledge that as well, but I cannot just stop with a compliment. I do want to give another assignment to the Minister of Finance who has done a fine job in coming up with a budget for this round. One thing that I want to see more of next year is that we enhance the money for education. One thing I noticed on page 10, it mentions a very brief statement about changing the curriculum for trade in our schools, in high schools, but I think we need to go further than that. I think it’s time that we revisit the PTR ratio. We went from 18 to one to 16 to one and that is an improvement, but it was an improvement from something that was very bad because, before that, we were at a lot lower rate. So I would like to challenge the Minister of Finance to try to go to 14 to one in the foreseeable future.

The second thing I would like to see is additional special needs funding. Mr. Speaker, in the last government we increased that funding from eight percent of the total budget to 15 percent. Mr. Speaker, may I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement?

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude her statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. You may conclude your statement, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Education is well aware of this. We did improve the funding for special needs to 15 percent, but it’s not anywhere near enough because I think even a layperson's observation will show that there is a lot more need for special needs funding right across the board in the Territories and 15 percent is not enough. I would like the Minister of Finance to work on getting 20 percent. I support the government’s move to try to fund kindergarten full time because I think that would lessen the pressure on the budget, and I believe that if we do this we could have a better chance of funding trade schools and trade programs in high school that would better prepare our students to take up the occupations that are opening that are mentioned on page 10 of the budget. I will just conclude there with the assignment for the Minister next year and I look forward to debating this budget in detail for the next week or 10 days. Thank you.

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