Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, according to the budget address for 20222023, business investment for 2020 was down minus 34.9 percent for the NWT.
Can the finance minister tell us what the government's plan is to turn those numbers around and increase business investment for the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Finance.
You're on mute.
Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to just confirm that I'm being heard? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
So I am quite conscious of the fact that there's been a reduction in the GDP over the last couple of years. We've obviously been through the pandemic and certainly in the last two years, that has been the predominant reason for that. Nevertheless, I think everyone's heard me say that we were in challenging times long before the pandemic and that we had to start looking at our economic situation. So I'm happy to have this question. Mr. Speaker, there's a couple of things.
Firstly, there's the mineral resource sector which continues to be one third of our private GDP contribution, and a lot of work is happening on that side to increase investor confidence, to increase awareness of the geological potential that we have, to incentivize early exploration and to incentivize advanced exploration.
There's also, of course, the other side of more general economic development that's going to diversify our industry. And in that regard, Mr. Speaker, just briefly, we have regional economic development plans underway. We have the Tourism 2025, which will hopefully bring back what was a growing sector and a lot of activity in that regard with the borders reopening. And certainly, Mr. Speaker, I'll make note of the fact that we've had very significant capital budgets in the last couple of years signalling that we are going to do as a government what we can to use our financial muscle to make sure that we're moving projects forward and giving access to those projects across the territory, which of course provides opportunity for local contractors to be involved but also builds up some of the infrastructure that we're hoping will then support continued growth and diversification. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, according to our recent budget address, the NWT's real GDP level was minus 10 percent for 2020. In fact, for three out of the previous five years, the NWT has experienced a decline in the GDP growth.
Can the Minister tell us what the government's plan is to reverse course and increase GDP growth for the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So Mr. Speaker, again, I'm certainly following the numbers as well, and I'm pleased to have an opportunity to speak to them. You know, and again, certainly for the last couple of years, a lot of the impacts were seen largely as a result of what was happening internationally and nationally because of the pandemic. That said, there's there was, again, some preexisting this is particularly within the mineral resource sector which is such a significant contributor to our GDP and which has such a direct impact on the numbers that are being raised here. So the fact that there's been also a very good recovery postpandemic or at least maybe not postpandemic but in the last year or so as the pandemic has evolved and changed, I would hope gives us a good signal that we are going to be on a good track.
You know, as far as what we're going to do going into the future, my last answer I already outlined some of what the government is doing. The final final impacts will depend a lot on what happens in the private sector but what I want to emphasize is to the extent that we have levers that we can pull, whether it's in capital spending, whether it's in other elements of trying to increase investor confidence, whether it's in supporting the small business sector, you know, through the spectrum of everything from BDIC to seed supports, those are all the types of things we're going to be looking at. And there's not one single thing that we need to do; it's all of the things that we need to do. So I'm conscious of that, and I'm happy to have it made reference of it on the floor. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the finance minister has been promoting the new government renewal initiative as a means to reducing costs for our government.
Can the Minister provide any estimates, any dollar amounts or projection data, which states how much money this initiative will save the government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the government renewal initiative was never intended to be an expressed budget cutting initiative or government jobs cutting initiative. It has always been an effort to say, you know, that we look at it having an over $2 billion budget and yet continue to see needs, continue to see challenges in various you know, in various programs or services, and so what we wanted to do was to take a step back and say, look, what are we doing with $2 billion that can better align with needs, priorities, values. Are there programs that we know are successful that could use more money and programs that perhaps could be shifted and have those resources directed to areas that are finding more success. So that's always been the intention of government renewal, is that we're bringing that culture of evaluation across departments, that we're bringing the culture of understanding what we do, why we do it, how we do it from the front lines, who are being the folks who do the front lines are being interviewed as part of the government renewal, all the way through to the senior management levels where they too, of course, are being interviewed and participating in government renewal. We're on track. The first step is to just get a real handle on the full inventory of what government does, and then the second step is to do the evaluation process. It is taking a while. Again, we're 11 departments. We're a 6,000 strong public service. But if to the extent that evidencedbased decisionmaking is how we want to make those decisions going forward, this is going to give us the evidence to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Thebacha.
Mr. Speaker, I have heard from many of my constituents about the rising cost of living, the reduced purchasing power for people, and the historic levels of inflation, and it affects all consumer goods. Does the Minister of Finance have a plan to address this issue and help alleviate some of these extra costs for the people of the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am quite live to the fact that February 2022 saw an inflation level at 5.4 percent higher than last year. I've certainly been watching inflation not only since 2022 began but since the fall. We've been watching what's been happening geopolitically obviously, as I know everyone has in the last few months, but also even before that with respect to supply chain issues. So, you know, I certainly want to be clear that the Department of Finance is aware of the challenges. We're aware of the financing impacts. We're looking at the impacts also from the perspective of what that's going to do to the government's revenue situation and our expenses, and there was already matters in the mandate to look at the cost of living and the impact that has on residents, the impact that has on businesses.
So having just answered three questions about the growth of the economy and the growth of business, I can't answer those three questions without always keeping in mind that the realities of supply chain challenges, the realities of inflation rising, those things are going to impact on all those other efforts. So, I mean, the plan is really one that is whole of government. The plan is one that is whole of department in that we don't we can't be looking to grow all of these other areas and pretend that we can have economic diversification, economic growth particularly in the small business sector, without knowing that we're going to have to continue to look at what gaps there may be, what funding opportunities we need to be seeking out, whether in partnership with the federal government or otherwise, in order to meet the reality that everyone, from small business to large business to government, are going to be potentially facing some major increased costs over the next year. So I mean, there's not a silver bullet here, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to pretend that there is. You know, there's a couple of governments who might be giving a few hundred dollars out and for some that might be helpful, and for others that certainly won't be enough. So there's I'm not going to pretend there's a silver bullet, Mr. Speaker, but I want to make everyone very clear and very sure that we are going to be watching this and monitoring this, and as we've done throughout the pandemic, doing our best to fill in the gaps. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
