Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I listened to the Minister of Finance in the budget address this afternoon, I’m hoping that throughout this whole session that we would have ample opportunity to have some of our wishes on this side here be included as part of the discussions.
Mr. Miltenberger talked about the Great Depression in his opening statement here on our finances in the Northwest Territories. Through the Great Depression I understand also there were many opportunities for people to get out there to find jobs, to find opportunities that would benefit them in the future. Also, a lot of wealth was created during the Great Depression, Mr. Speaker, because of the low prices of land and business and that.
That was a real opportunity for us in the Northwest Territories. We have that. You know, the economic outlook may not look so good. We had all our hopes on the Mackenzie Gas Project and right now it’s not getting much support, either, from the companies or even Ottawa. We don’t even know what’s happening with that. But we seem to be looking at, well, that’s still our great white horse that’s going to bring us the economic prosperity to the Northwest Territories. We need to wake up and look at it and say it’s not getting the attraction that we want. It has all the potential but it’s not there yet. We need to look beyond this and diversify.
One of the things we need to do is to get to those riches. This is something that I hope this government will look at, is a transportation strategy infrastructure to get to those resources. We’re rich in them but we just don’t have the means of getting into those areas that could produce a lot of prosperity for us.
This is what I’m looking for in this budget address and how do we get our people, get our infrastructure in place, get the education in place for our younger people, get the addiction programs in place. We need to wake up. This budget, I hope, gives us the opportunity to look at the reality for what it is and do something within the short time that we’re here.
I’ll have many questions for the Ministers on this budget throughout the next two to three weeks.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
