Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, although I have felt a strong sense of responsibility since the day I was first elected, I must say, the weight of what our territory is facing in the near future has felt heavier still as I have been considering the 20242025 Budget and the new reality of the Government of the Northwest Territories. At the time when our territory is most in need of investment in housing, education, critical infrastructure, health care, and climate change adaptation, amongst other things, our government is at the cusp of hitting its debt ceiling and has little to spend on any new initiatives. Getting older seems to accelerate with every passing year, Mr. Speaker, but I am still surprised to find myself wistfully looking back on the good old days of four years ago when the government had money to spend. Alas, here we are.
I have shared a fair number of specific comments on the budget and business plans already and will continue to do so during our deliberations, so I will keep my response to the Budget Address to highlevel commentary on how the budget relates to our priorities.
Mr. Speaker, when I look at the priorities that we set together as a group and at the proposed budget, I perceive a disconnect. My understanding of why we set focused priorities was so we could direct our energy to what we and the public have clearly communicated are the areas requiring the highest attention and resources. The other side of that council, of course, is that we may have to do less in other areas in order to ensure resources are directed at the priorities. This is the very essence and purpose of priority setting.
I think it's important to explore how we got to where we are with this budget and how this has contributed to the disconnect, I'm speaking to. As the budget was prepared, departments were given highlevel direction to implement the Fiscal Sustainability Strategy. This applied to all departments, and I think we've seen all make attempts at following it to a greater or lesser extent. Departments also took the priorities and looked at how their existing programming, or even some proposed programming, would help us work towards them. This is a fair approach for the departments to take individually. But what I don't think got enough attention was the highlevel governmentwide view across departments to look at the overall list of programs and activities we are engaged in, and whether the priorities necessitate shifts in resources or direction in order to substantively achieve movement on the priorities we set. By not doing this, we have arrived at a budget which has somewhat successfully began to implement the Fiscal Sustainability Strategy, and has also resulted in reductions to funding for housing, which is our stated top priority; education, which I believe is integral to a strong economic foundation; and health.
Looking at it this way, it seems evident to me that the top priority of this government is not any of our stated priorities agreed upon by caucus, rather, the Fiscal Sustainability Strategy is the number 1 priority of our government.
This may simply be the reality we have to face, but I suggest that if we had given more thought or time to better align our resources towards the priorities that we set, we might be able to better move towards fiscal sustainability and the stated priorities of the Assembly.
I want to turn to speaking to the individual priorities, what they mean to me, and what shifting resources to them will look like in my opinion. I'll start with housing.
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to see NWT Housing looking to do a territorywide needs assessment for housing, which I understand will inform applications to the federal government and other potential funders for funding towards addressing this key issue. I support this item in the business plans and would like it to lead to longterm planning and costing towards fully addressing identified needs over time as I have discussed previously. Where I think we are lacking, is in addressing the growing O and M deficit for this department and the declining state of our existing housing stock in the territory. This gap is why Members have brought forward the proposal to add $200 million to NWT Housing's budget over the next four years so that we can address required maintenance and upgrading of existing housing stock. If we do not do this, Mr. Speaker, I fear we run the risk of losing stock over time as quickly as we are replacing it, making it difficult to ever get to the point where we are fully addressing needs.
The next priority item I'd like to speak to is the strong economic foundation. Recently, the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment received a presentation from Mr. Graeme Clinton on his Eyes Wide Open Report, which discusses the upcoming closure of the diamond mines, what this will mean for our economy, and encourages leaders to discuss and develop a vision for what comes next. I consider my thoughts on this priority item the beginning of my response to that report.
Mr. Speaker, mining has for many years formed the backbone of the private sector of the NWT's economy, as is highlighted in the Eyes Wide Open Report. I think it is true that private investment and industry in the territory are an important component of a healthy economy and agree that employment, poverty levels, and economic activity are closely tied to social and health outcomes. I agree with Cabinet's mandate item under this priority to strengthen and improve efficiency in our regulatory system and am happy to make contributions towards that item with the experience I bring from working within the system.
I also want to focus on another aspect of our territory's relationship with industry that is highlighted, perhaps inadvertently, in the Eyes Wide Open Report and that I think requires our attention. As noted in the report, of 3100 jobs associated with this sector, 1500 of them have been staffed by NWT residents. The rest are staffed from the south.
While we did get around to establishing a heritage fund in this territory, it has been noted in the past to lose money some years and has failed to maximize longterm benefit for our residents from onetime resource extraction. So I would argue that we have failed to fully maximize the potential benefits associated with this sector to residents of the NWT by not investing more in education and workforce development and ensuring that we are adequately capturing royalties and saving them so that future generations can benefit from resources that they won't have access to because they have been mined in the present. What I don't want to see us do is double down on a model that has gotten us into the scenario we are in now, where we are facing significant economic hardship whenever industry ebbs and flows, or that there is significant economic activity happening but, despite this, many people are not in a position to benefit directly from this activity.
This does not mean I don't want to see us develop our resources. What it means is that I want to ensure that we are working to ensure we can do so in a way that maximizes benefits to people. To this point, Mr. Speaker, when I think of a strong economic foundation, I want to focus on the fact that ultimately people are the foundation of a strong economy. I would also turn that phrase around and state that people are also the reason to build a strong economy, and outcomes for the people of the Northwest Territories need to be the focus of our government. For this reason, for a long time, I have been advocating for significant investment in education in the NWT. I believe that we need to take a holistic approach to this and focus on improving outcomes for JK to 12 students and also round out our academic system by building a worldclass Polytechnic University to help develop our workforce and diversify our economy.
In response to Mr. Clinton's call for leaders to work to develop a cohesive vision for the future of the Northwest Territories, I want to point to the fact that a number of northern jurisdictions, which have previously largely relied on mining, are successfully diversifying their economies and that development of universities, and the knowledge economy is a key component in that shift. We only need to look next door to the Yukon, which is realizing economic and population growth through a diverse economy, to see an example of how this could work here. While postsecondary education is just one component of the Yukon's success, it is where I want the focus to be because of the status of our own postsecondary development project.
I look at our territory in comparison to the Yukon, and I am incredibly concerned about the troubling news that Aurora College's transition to a polytechnic is struggling to come to fruition. When I think of the Member for Inuvik BootLake's comments about us becoming a havenot territory, I worry that if we fail to adequately commit to invest in and ensure that this project succeeds, it will be yet another step towards economic and social downturn in comparison to our thriving neighbor.
We also need to consider the opportunities we are missing out on by not moving forward with this initiative.
The federal government has invested millions in infrastructure and program funding to support Yukon College's transition. It is also interesting to note that NWT diamond money has gone towards building and funding universities in British Columbia.
Mr. Speaker, Chuck Fipke, one of the discoverers of diamonds in the NWT, has donated $17 million to UBC over the years for buildings, equipment, and programming. Stewart Blusson, his partner in business, has donated $105 million to BC universities. By not having an institution to capture these kinds of investments, we are missing out. I find it incredibly frustrating to say that, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we are in a situation where we have to tell residents that if they want to attain a highquality education, they have to leave the territory. We are heading towards a situation where we will be telling residents that if they want to realize a good career in a range of sectors, they will have to leave the territory. At what point are we simply telling people they need to leave the territory? Let's not get to that point, Mr. Speaker. Let's look to our neighbor's example and invest in our people and develop the foundation for a strong economy so people can look forward to a bright future here.
We need to come together and work towards a collective vision which sets aside regional squabbling and seeks to work together to realize benefits for our territory as a whole. I heard Indigenous leaders making this call at the recent economic forum in April and was excited to hear their unity. Let's ensure the territorial government joins them and helps to coalesce around a vision we can all be excited about and work towards.
Lastly, I will speak to health. Mr. Speaker, as noted a few evenings ago, I am happy to see the health department speaking to evolving and investing in our primary care system to ensure better and more equitable access to care. I campaigned on making this shift and believe that while it may seem like a modest goal, it is integral and the key to ensuring better health outcomes in our territory. As noted previously in statements, the omission I see in health's business plans is addressing head on the workforce and management issues in the system which have been causing so many issues that we've seen in the news. For those reasons, I support the recommendations for change brought forward by Members in our budget report, which speak for themselves and don't need to be reiterated here. I also continue to advocate that the health Minister consider the recommendation brought forward by the Standing Committee on Social Development to pause changes to the extended health benefits program.
Mr. Speaker, finally, I would like to speak briefly to a part of how we got to the fiscal situation we are in and its implications on our ability to realize our goals for the Northwest Territories.
Over the years, GNWT workforce growth has significantly outpaced that of the population growth of the Northwest Territories. This trend became particularly acute most recently. In the short span of the past four years, the GNWT workforce grew by 25 percent. Coincidentally, and perhaps it is fair to say consequently, we seem to be less able than ever to provide adequate funding to our NGOs, to infrastructures, to programs which support our residents most in need. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to consider a shift away from answering the problems we face by growing the government and take a more holistic look at how the government can best achieve results for our territory by working with and funding partners, particularly our NGOs.
I do not think we need to take a draconian approach to this conversation and certainly do not advocate for one. Rather, I suggest we consider longterm planning which seeks to minimize impacts to individuals but also seeks to ensure our resources are used strategically and effectively and not continuing to grow the workforce exponentially as we have been. I want to see us investing in longterm sustainability in our NGO sector, to realize the benefits they can help bring. Let's invest in the arts, Mr. Speaker. Let's invest in tourism. Let's invest in diversifying our economy so that we are not in a situation of fiscal uncertainty whenever the sole industry that we're relying on ebbs and flows.
In closing Mr. Speaker, if I can share one overarching message in my reply to the Budget Address, it is that I would like to see us to truly seek to put our resources behind the priorities we have set. As I have said before and as stated in the mandate, we need to challenge the status quo and be bold and decisive. We need to make a plan for what we are going to do in the shortterm future to address the most immediate risks we are facing, make some decisions about what we're going to set aside for now, or not do anymore considering these priorities, and take swift action on implementing this plan. We can move quickly when need be, Mr. Speaker.
This government has demonstrated this ability in the face of several crises in the past four years. I think it would be ambitious to expect us to work as quickly as private industry but how about we shoot for significantly quicker than having plans in place two years from now or goals like developing a plan at some point within the term of the Assembly. Let's move quickly and let's be ambitious. Let's invest in our people, Mr. Speaker. They are the foundation of our economy, and they are the reason we are here. Thank you.
