Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s the end of our longest annual session and we’ve debated many critical issues facing our citizens today. Now it’s time for action. I want to briefly restate my priorities on how we need to act.
The Mackenzie Gas Project can only be supported if it is made to provide sustainable social and economic benefits to NWT residents and mitigation of its social and environmental impacts. We need the input of all MLAs in developing a response to the JRP report and I am calling on the government to honour the principles of consensus government by obtaining full Assembly and committee input to a response. We want a full debate in the May session.
By next session we must be well along in developing cooperative management partnerships with First Nations for the preservation of the Bathurst caribou herd. It is essential that the Yellowknives Dene be fully involved in this work and their and other interests equally respected. Members must be kept fully informed as this work progresses.
We’ve asked the government for an integrated, resourced, government-wide strategy for reduction of poverty. We must make progress in reducing the suffering of our citizens most in need. I’ll be looking for reports on how this is moving ahead.
Our greenhouse gas outputs are going up, not down, while our climate changes ever more quickly. Biomass makes sense in every way: on cost, employment, business and investment opportunities, protection from oil price spikes and the environment. We must move as soon and as effectively as possible. Mandatory targets must be set for the reduction of greenhouse gas production throughout the NWT.
The Finance Minister released a discussion paper on the creation of a Heritage Fund. We need a higher revenue return on our resources as they flow out of our Territory. We have that authority now and we need to start saving some of that revenue for the future. Let’s get it done.
We must never find ourselves caught in the vice of another major construction project disaster again. I will be investigating what legislation can be put in place to prevent this government from locking the taxpayers into endless cost overruns from future projects like the Taltson project.
In my opinion, this government has been disastrous to date. It has seriously curtailed our immediate and long-term potential to meet residents’ needs and expectations. We are in a deep morass.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted.
Our executive must make a much greater commitment to the principles and practice of consensus government. I spend too much time calling this government to task for its habits of unilateral action, as we all do, and then trying to clean up the mess later. Work with us and we will work with you. It can’t, it obviously doesn’t, work any other way.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
