Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about what’s next after devolution. This morning on the radio station I was listening to the chairperson from the Sahtu Secretariat, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, talking about the next steps in the progression of becoming a province that will have its own rights and meanings of being a part of the Confederation of Canada. She talked about a constitution in five to 10 years. I wanted to ask the Premier if that is the progressional steps we take in the evolution of becoming a province. We’re just about there, but we’re not quite there. We just don’t have that name. We have the powers now that we have negotiated them. Is that something that within this Assembly we would talk about and then move it to the next Assembly in regard to the Northwest Territories looking at provincehood?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
I’m a very practical and pragmatic person, so before we start talking about a constitution, we need to get devolution done first.
That’s all fine. That’s what we do here through our budgets and that. I’m asking about the leader here, looking forward to the Northwest Territories. I think as leaders around here, we are to inspire people to look at what’s ahead. I have a son who is 11 years old and it’s something he would look forward to and look at. Is that something they can look at and say, yes, one day, in five or 10 years? Is that something that the Northwest Territories can look at to be part of the Confederation of Canada through the means of constitution?
We already, as the Northwest Territories, are part of Confederation. I think, if I can put words in the Member’s mouth, he’s talking about becoming a province. We have looked at it. Right now the last time we examined it, our revenues would decline significantly. We would get approximately two-thirds less than what we’re getting now if we became a province, plus we’d have to face a hurdle whereby we would have to obtain at least 50 percent of the five most populated provinces to agree that the Northwest Territories should become a province. Those are the realities that we have to deal with.
In the North and in Canada, we are always changing and so we’ve got to look forward. I think we need to look at a new level of provincehood or the way the Constitution is, but the way it looks now, it doesn’t look in our favour. However, I’m not too sure if Canada and the Canadian people will say, let’s not give the right to the Northwest Territories people then. We can do things differently. We certainly passed the hurdle of the devolution. It’s still in its draft stages. I have hope and I have hope for my people. I believe in our people. We can do this. I want to ask the Premier, is that something that maybe by the end of the life of this government that will be some of the things that we need to talk about becoming a province.
Right now I’m focused on getting the final devolution deal done to have implementation. But I have spoken to a significant number of media and every one of them asks about becoming a province. Obviously, the Northwest Territories is the only jurisdiction in Canada that has a declining population. If we went to become a province, we’re going to have to turn that around. I look at Alberta. When Alberta became a province in the 1930s, they had a population of about 100,000. I expect that with all the potential for development and the tremendous resource potential, the road that we’re going to build to Tuk, I foresee that within the next decade we could very easily exceed 100,000 people. I think at that point we’d be in a very good situation to make the case to become a province.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We can use the scenario that the Northwest Territories is the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada. We’ve given birth to other provinces in the Northwest Territories. We have to remember that the Northwest Territories could become the next economic boom in Canada with the Norman Wells, and the road to Tuk and the mining. It could be a possibility that the people in Canada can say, yes. We’ve got our work cut out for us, but I think that’s something that we need to give to our people in the North. Devolution, fine. We’ll do the work, but we need to take the next step and call ourselves for what it is and call ourselves a province that belongs in the Confederation, not an administrative extension arm of the federal government as we have it now.
I think, in the longer term, we can aspire to that, but right now we’re going to get the devolution deal done and we’re going to implement devolution. We have a good midwife; we can start moving on to provincehood.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
