Mr. Speaker, thank you. This summer has, as the Premier has reflected in his sessional statement, seen a level of activity that can only guarantee that the NWT’s future as one of Canada’s most vibrant and vigorous economies will continue. The overall economic growth for 2003 here in the NWT was 10.6 percent; six times that of Canada. Over the next three years or so we will see two new diamond mines constructed: Snap Lake in the NWT and the nearby Jericho project in Nunavut. We will see the continuing acceleration of production at the other diamond mines. Mr. Speaker, both Diavik and BHP earn dazzling profit margins as they shave years off the expected life of those mines. In the energy portfolio, we are told to expect $50 million in this winter’s seismic exploration and drilling programs in the Mackenzie Delta as producers chase new supplies of record-breaking prices for a world that knows no limits in its hunger for energy.

We’ve seen the planning advance for the Bear River hydro station to help power the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, and that pipeline, Mr. Speaker, also advanced to its long-awaited filing for regulatory approval. At 1,200 kilometres and $7 billion, it is the biggest and most challenging prize for all of the 42,000 people of the NWT.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t want to spend too much time reading from the Minister of RWED’s script. Instead I’d like to focus on what should be in the Premier’s notes and report on what all this action means for us here in the NWT. The question we’ve always been asking, what’s in it for us, has yet to be answered, Mr. Speaker. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger -- the social side of the ledger -- we have a litany of crises and shortage that in an era of so much wealth and prosperity, amounts to a legacy of shame in the NWT.

Mr. Speaker, we have schools with roofs that collapse and foundations that crumble. Our Housing Corporation tells us that there are 3,000 families in core need of a safe, affordable place to live. We have rates of alcohol and substance abuse that eclipse the national average by five times and more. Mr. Speaker, I should seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude his statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Mr. Braden, you may conclude your statement.

Bill Braden

Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To continue on the social side of that ledger, battered and abused women and their children used emergency shelters at a rate eight times the national average in the year 2001-2002, and yet this Legislature is struggling with how to trim our budget by $20 million in each of the next two years. In the meantime, over those same two years, Ottawa will reap in excess of an estimated $350 million from our resources. What’s wrong with this picture? Are we destined to be only a cash cow for the federal treasury while our people catch only a few crumbs of precious resources as they literally fly out of here at unprecedented rates? Where is the legacy? What’s in it for us?

Last week, Mr. Speaker, the Throne Speech promised a strategy for the North. I’m as encouraged as anyone that Ottawa seems finally to be waking up to our plight, as well as our potential, but it was four years ago that DIAND promised to resolve the devolution issue of resource riches for the NWT and that deal is still a far-off fantasy.

We must temper, Mr. Speaker, whatever optimism we have for that strategy with clear resolve and a strong dose of reality, if we are to help ourselves to gain a share of what is already ours. Achieving devolution must be the single and most urgent priority before this Assembly, for at the rate we are going, the future is ours to lose. As those diamond mines accelerate and that pipeline advances, we don’t have a day to lose. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause