Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I have questions for the Minister of Finance. I'd like to ask the Minister of Finance if he has met with other Ministers to see if they have a plan to spend strategically to ensure that we get the best bang for our buck as far as government goes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have conversations with my colleagues in the other departments and it is a very important initiative that we do try and spend strategically all across the Northwest Territories, the larger centres, and then we recognize that in the smaller communities any investment we make I think is a real plus to that community and it does create some employment. So the quick answer to the Member's question is yes, I have had conversations with my colleagues and we do plan on any infrastructure investment to spend it strategically so it benefits all residents in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to the infrastructure spending by the government, has this Minister again continued discussions with the other Ministers to ensure that the spending is targeted to the Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories that we all support?
Mr. Speaker, everything we do in this Assembly, and I'm talking all 19 of us, is I think targeted towards the Mandate of the 18th Assembly, and many of the things in the mandate is to create employment, and it's a very large mandate so we don't miss too many parts of the mandate when we do our spending across the Northwest Territories. So the answer is yes, we do target the spending towards the Mandate of the 18th Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, people know I'm a big proponent of employment over things like applying for somebody to come and fix my house; I would rather give individuals a job so they could fix their own house. So does the Minister agree that creating employment with government spending, not necessarily employing the people, but creating employment with government spending is the best way to address social ills of the Northwest Territories?
Good question.
Mr. Speaker, I share the Member's concern with employment in the small communities, and I do agree that creating employment in small communities is one of the better ways to help with the social ills. It's not the only answer, there's other parts to it. We've seen prime examples of that, especially with the Inuvik to Tuk Highway, I can use that as an example, because I know from my past portfolios that our income support numbers went down, revenue went up with the housing collection. There was opportunities for training. I spoke of the numbers before, and there was great opportunity there for training. So this is a part of helping overcome the social ills of the Northwest Territories. I totally agree with the Member though, that people do want to work, and I think it's incumbent on us as a government to give them an opportunity for employment, and it's one of the reasons that we've gone through this exercise for the last -- since the beginning of this Assembly to free up some money so that we're able to reinvest that money back into the Northwest Territories, match any money that the federal government might make available to us. So there is a lot of moving parts to this, but at the end of the day our goal is for healthy people in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral Questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister agree that spending by government during slower economic times is positive for the NWT? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I totally agree. I totally agree that spending by the government in slow economic times is positive for the growth for the Northwest Territories, but I'm also a realist and I realize that we need to have the money to spend to stimulate the economy, and that's one of the reasons that I stand up here and take the flack I take for trying to make the decisions we make on reducing some of our spending so we can be in a position to reinvest that into the economy of the Northwest Territories. I will continue to stand here and preach that message, even though some of you may be getting tired of it, you're still going to hear it.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
