Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, have a look through past Hansard transcripts and year after year, you'll find speeches by MLAs complaining that the capital budget has failed to adequately allocate resources to the Assembly's priorities. I argue that the underlying reason for this pattern is that our capital budget setting process is disconnected from priorities by design, and we need to change that process if we want to see a change in budgeting.
Currently, departments are using a set of criteria for identifying capital projects none of which include priority consideration first. In most cases, substantiations are provided which do link projects to a priority item in some way or other, but this appears to be done after the fact not as part of an overarching strategic plan for actioning a given priority. What appears to be missing from our process is a more foundational conversation prior to budget development and across departments about the direction set out in the mandate and how that direction might impact not only our capital spending but even our organizational structure. The current process appears to operate under the assumption that everything we are currently doing holds intrinsic value and should continue regardless of our priorities. The problem we are facing, however, is we have limited resources and when analyzed strategically as a component of priority implementation, everything can't possibly hold the same weight. Strategic analysis may determine a very specific and limited course of action is the best way to effectively implement a priority when compared to other options, meaning projects which aren't as comparatively effective shouldn't come forward or be discontinued. In absence of this process, we are taking a scatter shot approach, and MLAs are being asked by an exacerbated Finance Minister to make ad hoc decisions about what to cut on the floor of the House. This puts MLAs in the precarious position of making cuts on the fly to a budget staff who have invested significant time in already and, similarly, without the above-noted priority analysis. This process has proven time and time again to not work, Mr. Speaker, and this territory is now deeply in debt because we keep building more and doing more and failing to change how we operate. These outcomes will not change until we change our processes. I will note specific examples of this problem throughout our review of the capital budget, and I'll have questions for the Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Members' statements. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
