Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Friday, the Finance Minister provided the people of NWT with the government's fiscal update. It was interesting, to say the least. The Minister said the government is committed to fiscal responsibility and the government's Fiscal Responsibility Policy. He went on to say we need to live within our means, not just for today or just for this year, but for all four years of the 18th Assembly. After reading this, I tried to wrap my head around what he meant by “fiscal responsibility.” I spent the weekend doing research on what fiscal responsibility should mean to the government. This is the definition I like best: “A pledge of fiscal responsibility is a government's assurance that it judicially spends, earns and generates funds without placing undue hardship on its citizens. It includes a moral contract to maintain a fiscally sound government for future generations on the understanding that a functional society is difficult to maintain without a fiscally secure government.” As I read more articles about fiscal responsibility, it became clearer that government can take these necessary steps to be responsible to their citizens. All that is needed is to develop and implement some sort of fiscal transparency. This would involve a number of things, including the ones that I will identify here: finding areas to reduce waste; identifying areas of financial ineffectiveness; identifying ways the government can function better; and identifying other funding opportunities.
I know it is sometimes hard to make all aspects of the budget visible to the public, but the government needs to look at better ways to engage the public and the public servants, not just the senior staff.
Later on in the speech, the Finance Minister said, “We cannot take the position of an ostrich and bury our heads in the sand and pretend and hope to escape reality.” I agree. However, the government cannot be like Chicken Little and go around crying, “The sky is falling” every chance they get and expect business and people to want to come and invest and live in the NWT. I agree with the Minister that we were aware that there were going to be some challenging times and hard choices to be made during the 18th Assembly. I would like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and sorry for not getting that right. I will hopefully get it right next time. I agree that we must work together to address these fiscal challenges. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what we meant by working together. Later on, I'll have some questions for the Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
