Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to review current conditions and trends that I believe are important considerations for informing the responsible decisions we in this House must regularly make. As our work in this fiscal year advances and we begin deliberations on our final year’s budget, we find ourselves in a world faced with even more uncertainties than when we began our term.
The impacts of the global recession linger. Fiscal stimulus funding is nearing its end, and given Canada’s need to begin servicing national debt, we can expect declining federal support programs in an ongoing federal withdrawal from housing responsibilities.
Energy prices, already high, will continue to climb while the world oil supply becomes more reliant on ever more expensive and problematic sources, as the recent experience in the Gulf of Mexico has shown.
In our NWT economy, we continue to pin our hopes on vague and distant solutions like the Mackenzie Gas Project. Developing the lasting and sustainable local economies that would secure our future still takes second place. We face enormous challenges, but opportunities also. We must begin shifting our energy supply to local renewable biomass and hydro; the work over years that must begin now, our environmental challenges are clear. As a nation and a territory, we have yet to take vital action to reduce our carbon emissions even though the damage of climate change and its impacts on our people and our land grows yearly, as yesterday’s News/North story amply demonstrates.
Drastic action to protect caribou was taken this year and the co-management regime to revive the herd is proving hard to create. This is our food, Mr. Speaker, and a keystone of our environment. Meanwhile, even well paid citizens are struggling to get by and our poorest poor citizens are amongst the poorest in Canada. The latest review of our electrical system has put us no further ahead in providing affordable, sustainable power. We’ve urged the government to proceed with an anti-poverty strategy, yet we await the public outreach this requires. Changes are proposed to the Supplementary Health Benefits Program, changes that will drive away taxpayers, families, transfer payments, volunteers and purchasers, while making the NWT a less attractive place for new residents. These changes must not go ahead. With a little more than a year left in our term, my priorities remain the same but the urgency is greater.
Mr. Speaker, I see unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Mr. Speaker, we must prove our talk with action on a fundamental shift to affordable, sustainable energy that protects us from world markets, with clear targets to cut carbon emissions. We must shift focus to support local and lasting business opportunities, especially biomass. Our greatest efforts must focus on meeting our citizens’ most basic needs. Cutting living and energy costs, sustaining our health programs and educating our next generation of citizens are our obvious greatest priorities.
As we turn now to the business of implementing policy and legislation that is good and responsive to our citizens’ concerns and to planning our final year in office, let’s show we clearly understand these responsibilities and let’s get it done. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
