Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance on his budget address. He read it almost without skipping a beat and it was one long address.
The contents of the address are also good. Overall it is good. But as I listened to the various announcements about investments and priorities of this government, where it said the government will do something tangible, I felt encouraged by that. That was the kind of thing I like to see.
Still, in this budget there are too many -- and I highlighted them in yellow -- references to developing a strategic plan or a framework or a consultation or a symposium. All those kinds of things, I still think -- and I spoke to this yesterday to some extent as well -- we have too much money as a government when every time we turn around with an idea of how to address an issue, that we spend so much on the front end, so much on the soft costs, so to speak, as opposed to putting the resources directly into the very tangible solution.
There are very good, experienced, long-time Northerners sitting in this room, and we hear from our constituents who have very good ideas as well. I think we need to focus more of our monetary resources on putting things into real action as opposed to spending too much time talking about it. It’s almost like some of the frameworks and the strategies that we refer to, it’s almost like they are in themselves something to be celebrated and that that’s the finished thing. Here, we have a strategy. Like, we’re all excited about it. Forget about the strategy. Let’s talk about getting the product out to the people that we plan to serve here in the Northwest Territories.
But overall, Mr. Speaker, I do want to say that in difficult times in the Northwest Territories I believe we have stayed a course that will stand us in good stead going forward. Of course, we would like to see many things that could enhance the well-being of our Territory, but overall I think that the budget as laid out here is very, very good, and I’d like to commend the Minister of Finance. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
