Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just have a few general comments in reply to the budget address and I’ll save my specifics for when we debate the main estimates. This budget process has been quite a unique experience. We have an unprecedented number of first-term MLAs, elected during a time when commodity prices were falling to ten-year lows, investment in the territory was waning, and no new mining projects were on the horizon. The Department of Finance told us that we need to find $150 million in savings, and because the previous Assembly saw fit to extend its term, we were forced to compress a budget process that usually takes about six months into three. These factors provide the backdrop to this budget and are contributing factors to the frustration expressed by Members on this side of the House.
One of the biggest contributing factors, as I see it, was the expectation for change. We were elected on the heels of sweeping changes to federal and provincial governments, whose partisan systems allowed changes in ideologies to be superimposed on an existing government structure. Our system is different. We’re not party politicians who adhere to a party mantra handed down from on high. We each think for ourselves, and our policies are driven by the wants and needs of our individual constituencies. That means that change comes slower than it would in a party system. We cannot immediately imprint our way of doing business on the apparatus of government, because it takes time to figure out what our way of doing business is. This has drawbacks and benefits. It provides stability by reducing the risk of wild shifts in policies after each election. The mandate document produced by this Assembly is an example of us trying to find our common vision. Regardless of our individual political leanings there is something in the Mandate for all of us. The left-leaning priorities are countered by right-leaning priorities. The aggregate is a middle of the road document. Without strong leadership and collaboration among all Members, the stability that consensus government provides can also be its biggest drawback.
You’ll notice that our mandate is full of references to ongoing GNWT initiatives and many vague and non-committal phrases. Without a unified vision, we defer to the expertise of departments and their stable guidance. We continue on the middle-of-the-road policies from the previous Assembly, which followed the same middle-of-the-road policies as the Assembly before that and so on. Now in this 18th Assembly we’re expecting a change in the functioning of a government apparatus whose mode of operations is fully entrenched. We had unrealistic expectations about change: not about the amount of change, but about the speed of change. Even when there is political will, change is slow. The Premier or a Minister cannot perform the actions of government. He or she relies on departmental senior management to dutifully carry out orders. If the orders do not follow the middle-of-the-road path that a department is used to, there can be resistance. It appears to me that some departments think the best political input is no political input. At times the Regular MLAs have been inundated with unrequested information, while at the same time being forced to wait weeks for pertinent and time-sensitive information that we did request. This lack of information and input is the source of my frustration. When combined with the truncated timeframe and the opaque nature of the main estimates, the first steps towards finding $150 million in cuts or revenues is happening without Members being given the proper tools to provide adequate input or oversight. Don’t be mistaken, Mr. Speaker, I will attest that everyone on this side of the House is working hard and doing the best possible job with the information we have; we just need more information. With all that being said, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to report that I actually do see change happening. We, the Regular Members, did not get everything we want in the budget consultations leading up to the debates on the main estimates, just as I’m sure each Minister didn’t get everything he or she wanted when Cabinet was debating the budget internally. However, I will give credit where credit is due. There have been instances where Cabinet was responsive and by working with them we were able to maintain millions of dollars in programs and jobs.
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It’s my understanding that in previous Assemblies, such compromise was unheard of. Despite not getting as much information as I would like or want we were privy to a level of detail that, again, was unprecedented in previous Assemblies. That fact that these comments seem at odds with my earlier statements about the lack of information speaks to how slowly change occurs and how far we still have to go. While there may be countervailing views, I don’t believe that we’ve hit a brick wall in Cabinet relations; I believe we’re making progress. Has the Premier fulfilled every promise he made when he ran for the position? No, but he hasn’t turned his back on those promises either. Even our Finance Minister is softening his steely persona, as evidenced in the House these past few days.
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I join my other colleagues and question the need for the $150 million in cuts. I’ve been asking but I have yet to receive a satisfactory or detailed answer to how that number came about. Regardless, that’s the number that they’re sticking with. The exercise to find $150 million was a perfect opportunity to find efficiencies and streamline departments. If a corporation, which always has the bottom line in mind, wants to find efficiencies and improve operations and accountability, they will undertake an internal audit. Effective internal audits adhere to universally accepted best practices that require an objective and independent auditor who has the freedom to speak to every member of a department in confidence and provide an unbiased appraisal directly to a Minister.
Unfortunately, the approach that this government took was to give each department a reduction total and let them figure it out. What the departments came back with is what we’d expect: cuts to frontline staff and programs with no substantial changes in department structure or senior management staff. But really, what else could they do? The job of senior management is to run the departments efficiently. If that’s the case then they should have already found all the efficiencies and a different approach to the reductions should have been taken. By tasking the departments with this reduction exercise the government passively prioritized cutting spending through layoffs and program cuts over finding money through innovation, identifying efficiencies, and addressing the structural problems within departments. I’m not opposed to the idea of reducing spending. Like my colleague Mr. McNeely stated, we can’t just sit on our resources and wait for the next federal transfer payment. We can generate the revenue we need to provide services without attracting significant new investments in the resource extraction industry, and that requires us to make investments in transportation infrastructure. However, the manner in which the reductions were done has the appearance of favouring bureaucracy over efficiency. This government can do better. Now, Mr. Speaker, these are just my general observations as a Member of this Assembly six months into my first term, part way through my first budget session. Despite my criticisms, I’m still confident that we will ultimately be able to do good for the people of this territory. I encourage Members on both sides to strive to work together so we can give our citizens the change they voted for. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
