Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A few comments, as my colleague said, this masterpiece is a Picasso, because sometimes you can’t quite understand, you know? I’m trying to say it’s beautiful. That’s the blunt message, I think, that the Minister of Finance was telling us through the budget address here. It’s a blunt message to the people of the Northwest Territories. Like it, love it, whatever, here are the facts, the cold, hard facts.
Revenue is down, so we’re not going to get a little more progress that we want to have in our communities. We cannot exceed the money that we want to spend by not having it come in. Our revenue is flat. We’re at a cruise speed here and this budget is telling us bluntly, soberly, this is what we’ve got to do, folks, we’ve got to spend wisely.
We could still spend all the money that we have in the budget, but that’s it. By the way, we might have other projects we want to do, but we will share with you later on.
The message is very clear. We are spending everything now that we have in the communities. In order to add the additional programs or things that we want to add, we have to create revenue. How do we do that? It’s through socio-economic, sustainable economic, something that has to do with economic development. We have to do it. We cannot ask for things and do nothing. That doesn’t work this way. This is real life. It’s not fairyland where we can dream things up. So, we’ve got to create the economy to be self-sustaining in the Northwest Territories. That’s what we have to do. But we need to do it responsibly, soberly and environmentally friendly, and that’s what we’re looking at. That’s the challenge for us. You know what, Mr. Speaker? I believe that the young kids now in our schools will able to do that. They’re smart, you can invest in them, get them to think, you know, and do things hands on. Things for them.
We’ve talked about some of the things our past governments have learned. The Minister has noted in the budget that we have learned this in the past, the mistakes that we have learned. Hopefully today, in this budget, we’re not going to do it again.
What’s that word, Mr. Speaker, for insanity? Keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for different results? With this government, I think we’re making some changes. I think it’s good. I think now the people need to know that our expenditures are quite high, and this budget talks about taking some personal responsibility. We have to start doing things that are going to sustain our lifestyle for our kids. So I think this budget talks about, you know, things that are hurting us in the health field, such as the abuse of alcohol, too much cigarette smoking. Those things are killing us, literally in the government but also in our communities. I think that’s what the budget is saying. You cannot continue this way of life. We could, but something has to give. Something’s going to fall. Something’s not going to sustain itself. This is a wake-up call budget for me, because we cannot continue doing what we’re doing. It’s right here. It says right here, if you look at the numbers and you study it in the morning, study it in the evening, have discussions and say, what are we doing here? This is what we have to tell our people. I believe that’s the blunt message. Nobody likes it. It’s not about popularity. It’s about reality. That’s what you have to look at.
It’s talking about the future generation. We all have children. We have nieces and nephews, grandchildren, and this is what we’re passing on to our grandchildren. You can take this issue and you can change it to an opportunity, but think about it, do it. Lots of opportunities are in here to learn to grow. My children now play with the iPads and everything. They hardly go outside. Not like when we were growing up. We were kicked out of the house, as a matter of fact. The days of getting ice on the Mackenzie River are done only when we go camping to get ice on the Mackenzie to get water. That’s not today’s lifestyle. It’s totally different.
I just want to say that this budget takes an assessment of our realities, our dependency on the federal government. This budget tells me that 80 percent of the funding that comes to the Northwest Territories, we depend on the federal government for that money. We are just too small to raise our own revenue. Four hundred twenty-five million dollars comes just from raising our revenue. We cannot survive, but as a government you know how it is to be dependent on somebody else. Now I know how children feel being dependent on their parent. The parent makes the rules and the parent says this is how we’re going to spend. Just like our government in Ottawa. They tell us how to spend, where to spend, and if you want to get more money, come and ask us.
Those are some of the things I want to mention in this budget. But I want to say in closing, as Mr. Alfred Moses, the MLA from Boot Lake says, this is our last chance at this budget for this Assembly. There’s hope and there are lots of good people that put this budget together, a lot of people in the communities that have been in worse situations. We will survive; it just means that we just can’t have ice cream with our apple pie. You know what I mean? We want it but we can’t have it because we can’t pay for it. That means we’ve got to do without it. It might be good too, sometimes. But that’s the kind of budget that it is. We will do it the best we can with the progress we have, and there’s lots of work. I want to say that there’s hope for it. We’re survivors in the North. We’re fighters. We come together when we need to come together, just like communities come together when they need to come together, in good times and in bad times. We will make it, and we will pass this on to the 18th Assembly. I know we’re strong people because we come from a very strong ancestry in the Northwest Territories.
I want to say this budget here is a good budget. It’s not the one that I was hoping for, but it’s a good one. It’s a reality-based one and that’s the blunt message that we have to get to our people of the Northwest Territories. Don’t give up on yourselves and don’t give up on the government. Work hard. Do something rather than to say something about it.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 12, petitions. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to revert to item 8 on the Order Paper, written questions.
---Unanimous consent granted
