Thank you, Mr. Speaker. People across the NWT are concerned about this government’s direction. I can’t help but agree. Many have observed a distressing alignment with the approach of our federal government under its present leadership. Government communications clearly reveal it doesn’t care what Members think or what the public thinks. A recent example is the surprising revelation that despite a 60 percent increase in our debt limit last year, our Finance Minister has initiated actions to seek an even higher debt limit. Not only no debate, but not even bothering to tell the elected representatives of a supposedly consensus government. To hear a Finance Minister say in this House that schools and medical infrastructure are not investments in economic development whereas highways are, shows a dysfunctional understanding of economic development. Sound economic development comes from healthy people, not from healthy roads.
Such thinking is all too common in this government’s policies and pronouncements and these policies yield economic development that tends to benefit non-residents, leaving net costs to Northerners. Later I will be speaking to the government’s plans for big subsidies to the richest companies in the world. Such activity will pull workers in from across the country, people who will not live here and will not pay taxes here, but will leave costs for us to pay.
Each of our current diamond mines have had to hire greater numbers of workers from outside the NWT. We now lose $300 million in wages per year just from diamond mines, not oil and gas included yet. In North Dakota we learned that workers making a dollar in that state pay income tax on that dollar in that state regardless of where they reside, yet I hear no plan to tackle this issue or any of the others associated with the government’s development approach that will, again, largely benefit non-residents.
Last week the Premier said we will spend up to $700 million on a transmission line to export power to Saskatchewan. Power in Saskatchewan costs one-quarter of that in Fort Smith, so we will sell our power at a steep loss. This even without considering the half billion cost of the power line. Are we exporting or are we actually planning to import coal-generated power through this line to replace our local clean hydro power or even diesel with the dirtiest power in the world? Either way, it is another example of the wasting of public funding on infrastructure for industry, while our community infrastructure and sustainable approach and local benefits falls apart.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
This and more, despite public input, considerable public input that has called for economic focus and diversification towards smaller scale and renewable resources, development that provides real benefits and healthy communities. We heard this with the economic opportunities consultation, a comprehensive consultation. Perhaps it’s devolution on the brain, but whatever it is, it’s reason for concern and a re-examination of this government’s direction. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
