Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn’t speak about one of my favorite topics one last time in this Assembly, Infrastructure.
When I say that word, one’s mind often turns to roads and buildings, airports, and bridges. But really Infrastructure encompasses so much more than that. It is
The pipes that bring you water and carry away your waste.
The fibre optic line that allows you to instantly communicate or watch that sporting event in Europe.
The solid waste facility where you take your garbage or the water treatment plant that provides you with fresh, clean water to drink.
One only needs to compare the budgets associated with the GNWT departments to understand the sheer enormity of the Department of Infrastructure and all they do for residents and the territory. This is the department that completes the community resupply and ensures that heat and ventilation systems stay on in our buildings. They ferry us around, keep our planes in the air, and patrol our highways.
Over the last four years, I have been vocal about the extreme infrastructure deficit in our communities. Our hamlets and towns are in desperate need of funding to build new schools and recreation centres, roads, and waste facilities. However, what good is building new infrastructure if we’re not properly caring for what we have? Everywhere you go in the NWT the eye is met with crumbling, aging buildings and roads in need of repair. Despite a new capital budget full of road money, the political will to address the infrastructure deficit has been missing in this Assembly. Every year that we fail to provide the funds to upkeep and properly maintain our assets, the costs for repair and replacement exponentially increase. To allow this to continue is negligent and poor fiscal management. One only has to look at the lack of movement, the lack of urgency, to address the shoreline erosion threatening the diesel plant in Fort Simpson for a prime example of this lack of foresight and planning by the GNWT.
Mr. Speaker, I want to urge whoever sits in this Chamber in the 20th Assembly to immediately assess and create a plan to address the growing community infrastructure deficit and to properly fund municipalities so that they can operate and maintain their assets in order to ensure their longevity.
And one last thing Mr. Speaker, I want to urge them to build the Mackenzie Valley Highway a needed lifeline for the Sahtu if they do anything in the next four years.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Members' statements. Member for Yellowknife North.
