Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 10, Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2024-2025, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Pursuant to rule 8.2(3), Bill 10 is deemed to have first reading as ready for second reading.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nunakput, that Bill 10, Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2024-2025, be read for the second time.
This bill authorizes the Government of the Northwest Territories to make appropriations for operations expenditures for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. It also sets out limits on amounts that may be borrowed by the Commissioner on behalf of the government, includes information in respect of all existing borrowing and all projected borrowing for the fiscal year, and authorizes the making of disbursements to pay the principal of the amounts borrowed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. The motion is in order. To the principal of the bill.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried. Bill 10 has second reading.
---Carried
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nunakput, that Bill 10, Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2024-2025, be read for the third time. And thank you, Mr. Speaker, I'd request a recorded vote.
Thank you, Minister. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to say it's been a bit of a grind these last couple of weeks I think is a bit of an understatement. Certainly, I know we've -- for those of us who it's our first time going through the budget process, certainly a learning experience and, yeah, and a long experience. Again, a big thanks to the staff that beared with us through this process.
I was going to say something cheeky about the Minister of Finance, but she works way too hard for me to do that. And I'm not going to lie, I'm a little bit scared of her as well so -- after the past three weeks.
Mr. Speaker, I'm going to be supporting this budget today and, listen, it's a balance. I know, you know, it's a balance when we come as Members from our constituents, we all have things we'd like to see in the budget, things that maybe we aren't so interested in the budget and, you know, we have to get through as a group. We understand that there's -- you know, we have some fiscal restraint that we need to look at for this government based on what's happened in previous governments, and I think we're heading in that right direction and I guess I commend everybody on that.
Having said that, of course, I'll continue as I have in this House, and I'm sure other Members will as well, to advocate for things that are in the budget, certainly partially, some things are in the budget wholeheartedly, but things that we'll continue to work towards. And, Mr. Speaker, I'll speak to a couple of those.
Certainly on our housing, housing is one of our major -- you know, one of our main priorities in this House. I know how passionate and certainly how hard working the Minister of housing is, and I know I'm going to see that transferred to her department as well. But what I will say is please spend the money, spend the money. We have units that need to be built. We have units that need to be repaired. We have people sitting and waiting for these units that have been promised these units, Mr. Speaker, and they're still waiting to get in them. So let's ensure to do whatever we have to do to get that money spent.
On addictions, Mr. Speaker, you've heard a lot of us speak on addictions here and what it's doing to our territory, what's happening in our communities with the drug trade, with the hard drugs that are in our communities. And, Mr. Speaker, I think that's going to take not only an investment in programs or an investment in infrastructure there when the time comes, we need places for people to go so when they come back into this territory after getting the significant treatment they need that they have a place to continue that treatment and not fall back into those situations that got them there in the first place, Mr. Speaker. So, again, and I know it's not only important to me, it's important to everybody on both sides of this House.
I'm happy, Mr. Speaker, with education and early learning and child care. I know, again, the Minister's very passionate on that issue, and I'm happy to see that we do have some additional funding in there to ensure that we're paying the people that look after the people that allow us to go to work every day and to make sure that we're able to attract professional people to work in our early learning centres and to give them the compensation that they deserve, they require, and to continue to do what they do. So that certainly makes me very happy. And I know speaking from members in my riding and the Children's First Society in my riding, it will be very welcomed news.
Economic growth, Mr. Speaker, you've heard me say in this House before, and I'll continue to speak about it, about, you know, thinking outside the box, I'm going to continue to advocate for our natural resources, I'm going to continue to advocate for natural gas in my region, and I'll continue to advocate for working with our Indigenous governments who are, again, leading the way on a lot of these -- certainly in my riding, leading the way on this initiative there. And I trust that we will continue to work with them and ensure that we are taking advantage of that as well.
It was spoken about passionately here today, with the Member certainly from the Sahtu -- he knows my opinion on this issue -- the Mackenzie Valley Highway is a must, Mr. Speaker. In my riding or in the Beaufort Delta, our trade route is through the Yukon. There's no doubt millions of dollars pour in through Yukon to Edmonton to Whitehorse. That is our trade route, Mr. Speaker, because that is our route to get there, and we need that highway. And I hear it regularly throughout my riding, our constituents, get that highway built. So I'm glad to hear the inspiring words that our Minister said today, as well as my colleagues, that, you know, we are going to get there, and we'll continue to push for that.
There's many other issues, Mr. Speaker, I could speak to. I got to tell you I'm a little low on gas, pardon the pun, after these last couple of weeks but I would like to say a huge thank you, obviously, to my colleagues, to our deputy chair of AOC, our Member from Deh Cho, and the work that AOC has done on this, to our amazing staff that have guided us through this work and stuck with us through thick and thin and, of course, to our Cabinet colleagues and specifically the Minister of Finance who's been nothing but professional and forthcoming and the Premier for stepping in when he had to and kicking some things across the goal line, which I certainly appreciated. And also the Minister of health, I know we had a little back and forth. But all of Cabinet, seriously, it's been a process. It's never easy. But I think we finally got there, something that I think we can be proud of. And I'll have some suggestions for the Minister of Finance on how we can maybe do this process a little differently next year, but we can talk about that at a later date. But, again, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. To the motion. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking the honourable Members of this House and those in the public service and the Legislative Assembly who work to support us. This has been a demanding sitting. And without the attention of its Members and the diligence of our staff, we could not have accomplished our task of concluding the 2024 Budget. And I do want to give them a shout out as many members have today.
Mr. Speaker, compared to the last Speaker, my friend from Boot Lake, this will be a glass half empty speech to his glass half full, but I think it's important to contrast different expectations we may have in this House and also speak to our process of how we budget. I do want to thank the Minister of Finance for agreeing to partially fund the financial requests of the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight to the tune of $13,349,000. This includes reinstatements of the $2.58 million towards the community access program and the small community employment support funding; $3.5 million for early learning and child care funding; $500,000 for the Aurora College transformation project; and a commitment towards revenue neutral carbon pricing.
I want to, well, thank her in her speech yesterday for acknowledging that the standing committee, nor its membership, must align itself with the government's fiscal strategy; however, referencing this strategy in the same vein as committee's requests seems to imply that we are opposed to that strategy or more broadly we are promoting undisciplined spending during fiscal restraint. This is not the case. Many members on this side of the House have spoken for the need for restraint, including the last Speaker, especially around the growth of government jobs and unsustainable public sector growth. What Members have called for, rather, is an investment in priorities and a cohesive plan to develop spending to the areas as it's most needed, not to spending more money -- then not to spending more money when we don't have it. To be clear, the standing committee did not prescribe where the Minister needs to find the money, only that she spends it and perhaps alter other expenditures as a result. This government does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. Revenue continues to grow year after year. That is not the Northwest Territories' problem. Our problem is how we spend those dollars.
Mr. Speaker, $13,349,000 in a $2.2 billion budget is not a modest sum of money. It is, at best, a rounding error worth less than a percentage point. For the countless hours that the standing committee and the House poured into Budget 2024, it's incredible to me that there's so much handwringing and negotiation that was required to get it. It's almost as if our system functions to corral our Members into fighting for table scraps as the machinery of government chugs along, undaunted by the supposed minority position of Cabinet. We have all been ground down by this process, long days and nights eroding any sense of priority other than get us out of here. We should be fighting for our constituents, not against our own exhaustion. After 23 hours and 26 minutes, we can do far better than this outcome and far, far better than this process.
Mr. Speaker, $13 million and change has not saved the midwifery program. It has not rolled back the changes to extended health benefits that will drive up costs for many of my constituents. And it has resulted in a little more than a stay of execution for the Fort Smith correctional centre. We heard loud and clear that these things are important to everyday Northerners, working hard to stay ahead of a world that is getting more expensive, less predictable, and far more dangerous. Likewise, we missed an opportunity to phase out private agency nursing by 2027, to stop the slow moving privatization of our health care system, a move that would have cost nothing and done so much to improve staff morale and send a clear message that we value our health care professionals and will do anything to make our system work better for them instead of rely on an expensive band-aid solution.
Mr. Speaker, there is much I continue to support in this budget. Expanded and enhanced policing, economic initiatives around film, fisheries, and mining, health care investments, and more planning towards transformative infrastructure projects like Taltson Hydro, the Slave Geological Province Road, and Mackenzie Valley Highway. These initiatives are more -- these initiatives and more are contained in this budget and are critical to the future of the Northwest Territories and to Range Lake as they align with the promises I made to my voters; promises I intend to keep.
So I will be voting to support this budget, but I will also continue to hold accountable the government for the commitments they've made to address the concerns we brought forward both at committee and in this House, particularly the promises made to midwives, health care professionals, correctional officers, and to the community of Fort Smith. I look forward to moving forward and this government to start making progress towards achieving its mandate and realizing the promises of all of our political priorities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. To the motion. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not have a fancy speech; I have bullet points so bear with me. I think overall, generally speaking, it's a sign of a good negotiation when both sides come away somewhat unsatisfied. I also want to thank the AOC chair and AOC deputy chair. These two folks have done a fantastic job for the folks that are here on this side of the House. Much gratitude to you both.
The conversations that I will continue to have with this Cabinet focus on four main areas. The first, after listening to my colleague from Yellowknife North, is the Office of the Children's Lawyer. When we have folks in legal aid pleading with us not to cut that office, I think we should listen to them. The second is midwifery. The conversations that folks on this side of the House, and I think most of the Members on this side of the House and some on Cabinet have had with the folks in midwifery in the NWT, have pointed to the lack of a system that truly supports making midwifery a strong reality in our territory. I think the benefit and path forward from these conversations that I see as a positive, and up to those conversations that I was having as late as today, Mr. Speaker, was that there is a door open for those conversations to continue, and I think the relationship is one that can continue to build, and I look forward to working helping to build that wherever I can. When it comes to extended health benefits, I want to thank Cabinet for increasing the threshold as I campaigned on the absolute dire straits that many people in my riding find themselves in with the cost of living. Any time we're asking people who are ill or disabled to have even more hardship is something we need to take a closer look at. I am confident the Minister of health is going to look at that very carefully in the rollout of this program.
And, finally, when it comes to the fact that we are in fiscal restraint, Mr. Speaker, and that very much means that the writing might be on the wall for the -- how do I put this -- one of the options available in the tool kit of this government is reductions in the public service, Mr. Speaker. And while I recognize that might be an attractive tool to save money, I would really encourage specifically the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for the public service, to heed the mandate letter that she just received today from the Premier. And that reads: The GNWT has an amazing workforce, one which continuously strives to provide services and programs to the best of their ability to residents. As Ministers, we must provide public servants with the guidance and tools necessary for them to work with us in our commitment to serving the people of the NWT.
So some of those tools should be how -- if their jobs are no longer necessary, how they can be trained up for other jobs in the public service, Mr. Speaker, and how we can support them to transition and give them lots of time to contemplate how that might look. So I will continue to press on that, Mr. Speaker.
One of my colleagues here in the House used the word in this session that I really, really like, and that word is heartful. Being heartful and vulnerable are assets in a consensus government, not liabilities. It's been very apparent to me that the more that you spend time speaking from your heart in this building, the more people will hear you and the more concessions on both sides can happen. Listening in a heart forward way I think is the way that the majority of us do our work here every day since November, and I hope that that can continue and that we can continue to have hard discussions and good conversations and make good choices for the residents of the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
To the motion. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of the budget here. We've started off the initiative towards the fiscal sustainability strategy back in February, and now we're at the end, and it never turns out in the interest of what we all expect, but I think we can all realize that there is passion in this Chamber. I feel confident in this leadership in moving on. Yes, we got to give today for tomorrow. And that compromise is what I'm going to be telling the community of Deline and in collaboration and working together and moving forward is exactly what I expect to receive. I've got to attend a graduation in Colville Lake here next week. It's the same day as the Deline school. Deline is larger than Coville, but in the spirit of collaboration, I know I will get support for not attending Deline by the elders there saying thank you for going where the priority is. Colville Lake, they're far behind in their school infrastructure and given the need, I do expect and I know I will get respect on collaboration by the community of Deline in saying thank you for going to Coville rather than we would like you to be here but in standing and supporting our Sahtu communities, I agree with you why you picked Coville over my community. So on that note, I see that philosophy here with this budget. And I see the passion in leadership on moving ahead. People are waiting for this budget. Some people are phoning me from back home and saying when are we going to go to work because we got to depend on the municipal carve out for our communities. Okay, just wait. Now we can all go back to work on summer projects, and I'm glad to hear that the smaller community funds are reinstated. I think we put a lot of smiles on people's faces in the smaller communities, in particular the ones that I represent that are facing hardships. And I look forward to joining them in discussing some of the solutions that the Ministers of Finance, Infrastructure, and ITI has shown their support for designing a relief package for the impacted members due to the cancellation of the barge. So I look forward to working with what we got. And I hope everybody has an enjoyable summer. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. To the motion. Member from Monfwi.
Mr. Speaker, thank you. Mr. Speaker, I realize that the GNWT is more than $1 billion in debt, and we are at 96 percent of the debt limit. Yes, we are in fiscal restraint, and I commend the Cabinet for its effort to meet the needs of the people. The Cabinet has done its best to work with the people and especially our colleagues on this side too. I know not everyone is going to agree, but the Cabinet Ministers listen and work with us. That is a good thing. Not only that, but some of us Regular MLAs make budget requests and feel that our requests and proposals were listened to by the government. We are glad to see the government working with Indigenous governments as well in creating bilateral agreements.
I am thankful under Premier Simpson's leadership there is a good working relationship with Indigenous governments such as Tlicho government. And as noted before and as an example, we see their working relationship, you know, working with the Tlicho government trying to create the Tlicho administrative region, and Housing NWT is working with Tlicho government to possibly transfer 14 market rental units as noted, transitional addiction recovery program, and other programs that will help community members suffering with addictions and mental health.
Mr. Speaker, for the first time we will have a midwife position in Behchoko. Hopefully that will make a difference for young parents. Although, Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge and recognize our ancestors who were -- many of them were midwife and delivered a lot of babies with no pay. I would like to recognize them as I am speaking here.
Mr. Speaker, I know we cannot close the municipal funding gap with this budget though. Although I am confident that in the future we can identify areas of saving which can then be redirected to close the municipal funding gap more effectively. One of MACA's goal is to help create and maintain healthy communities. Healthy communities lead to healthy people. It is an exercise in prevention.
Mr. Speaker, if we cut funds for communities, we are creating pressure to displace people from the communities and have them migrate to Yellowknife or to other larger regional centre. When you talk to certain people in Yellowknife on the street, many times you will find they are from the communities -- from a community. Their needs were not met in the communities, in their small communities, and now the cost for their care in Yellowknife is dramatically increasing.
With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, the funds allocated to small communities for capital operation and maintenance is not enough, and small communities are suffering and struggling. In the future, the government will have to take more time to work with us on this. I will support this budget but look forward to working with the Cabinet Minister to make appropriate changes reflecting the needs of the small community.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank everyone here, our colleagues, and staff for helping and working with us as these past two weeks have been hard on all of us. It was a stressful time for us. And when we return in fall, there's going to be one research staff that is not going to be here, so and she is moving on to something better. And I wish her well, and I know we will miss her. And I want to wish everybody to have a good, safe summer. Thank you.
To the motion. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I recall in 2023, when I was first elected to the Assembly here and I came in midway through an election, and I was not around when the whole budgeting planning process was starting to happen. Even though I came in, I brought in the wishes of what I heard from my riding and I put it all in the suitcase, and I went to the Premier of the day trying to get that luggage thrown on the train. And the train's halfway through its destination, and the Premier of the day had mentioned that she will do her best to try to get it onto the train. And needless to say that none of my issues never did get on that train. But having said that, in 2024 now, once we got back into this position as the MLA, I brought forward letters to Minister Wawzonek and dated back to March 15th of this year, and I highlighted everything that I could think of that I heard from my riding. It's a wish list, but it's a luggage as well. And also on April 29th, 2024, I also sent another letter to the Premier -- sorry, to the Honourable Caroline Wawzonek in regards to the Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh funding needed for the homeownership, etcetera. So I put that luggage together. Now the train's leaving the train station now on a four-year journey.
Even though we got to -- you know, we're dealing with a $50 million deficit this year, we still got hard times yet to come for the next three years. We still got another 150 next year and for the next three years. It's going to be a very tough time. But having said that, though, Mr. Speaker, I know I'm trying to address the issues in my riding in regards to housing and homeownership repairs and etcetera. That's what I've been hearing a lot. And so when I put this letter together and sent it in, it's my hope to work with the Minister and the Premier and the Cabinet and to look for ways to try to make this a reality, even the situation we're in right now. I always said that I know that the policies are very difficult to -- trying to get help for our people in the small communities, it's like I said the other day, trying to shoot an arrow into a dart board that's in Lutselk'e. But if we work together, we can do it together and we can make sure that we hit that bull's eye.
So, Mr. Speakers, it's the key here is working together. And with my colleagues here, we may have -- we may not always agree or disagree, and same thing with our colleagues on the other side. I served with the colleagues on the side too in the last Assembly. And the key here is continue to build relationships, build partnerships, most importantly work together, but at the same time we got to show respect. And to me when we do that -- because we got good teachings from our elders, and the key here is to listen and to look to bring out the issues that's coming from the communities and to look for solutions. And I think the last four weeks that we've been here it's been really tiring going through the budget process. And for me now as the chair, as the deputy chair coming in, it's been an experience, especially when we're going through the budget process. And so anyway, I know that the situation we're in, but I think we will get through it together and we have to have a balance. And so I look forward to continuing to work with the Cabinet, with my colleagues, in a respectful way. And, Mr. Speaker, I will support the budget. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Colleagues, before I go on to the next Member, just would like to remind you that we use titles and not names in the House here, please and thank you.
To the motion. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are many encouraging things in this budget that will help to set us on a better path as a government and as a territory, both things that were initially proposed by Cabinet and both budget changes and policy changes that the government has agreed to through negotiations with Regular Members. I want to give just a quick rundown of the highlights for me and flag a few key items that are left outstanding that I think need to be urgently addressed as we move forward with this work.
So I'm encouraged to see the transitional housing for addictions recovery program which has been called for a very long time to address the big gap in aftercare, people returning from addictions, and to see the recent commitment to even expand that within the life of this government. I'm encouraged to see that we are continuing to support the transformation of Aurora College to a polytechnic. I'm encouraged to see more money to support better compensation of early learning and child care workers and additional funds put into repair and maintenance of public housing. I'm also encouraged to see the government has committed, in its response to committee, that it will include in its strategic energy plan a goal of reaching net-zero emissions for both nonindustrial and industrial emitters by 2050. I'm pleased that the government has agreed to examine and estimate the cost to introduce an Office of Practitioner Experience in the health care system that would help frontline health care providers get their concerns addressed in more effective ways. We need to change the way we're doing things in the health care system, particularly in terms of staff retention.
Another recommendation that was made by committee in the health care topic was a health care workforce plan. It was derived from a suggestion made by the NWT Medical Association. The government's response, however, was unclear and simply referred us to the HSS human resources plan, which I want to be clear does not accomplish the same thing as a systemic workforce plan. So I will continue to advocate for such a workforce plan so that we can be proactive in deciding, first, what level of health care services are realistic and worth striving for, to plan and budget for appropriate numbers of professionals and appropriate types of health care professionals to be able to actually accomplish that and do it well without constantly straining and burning out our staff capacity.
I continue to be concerned about the elimination of the Office of the Children's Lawyer position. I'm aware that a letter has been sent to the Minister just this week by the Legal Aid Commission, which is the oversight body for legal aid, and it says, I quote: We believe that the role of the Office of the Children's Lawyer is misunderstood by the Minister and the Cabinet.
Now, the commission recommends restoring the full operating budget of the Office of the Children's Lawyer, and legislation requires that the Minister seriously consider any such recommendations of the commission. So I trust that will take place, and I look forward to that discussion continuing.
I also continue to be concerned about the reductions to Arctic Energy Alliance, reductions both to operating funding and grant programs to communities. We have major energy challenges in this territory, Mr. Speaker, and Arctic Energy Alliance has been doing crucial work in partnership with community governments to equip our homes and our communities with cleaner, more energy efficient technologies. This work is often incremental, small, but steady; it's behind the scenes, but it's incredibly important. And I hope the Minister establishes a closer working relationship with Arctic Energy Alliance moving forward to be able to support that important work.
We have much work ahead of us. I hope we can all keep our focus on the bigger picture and the collaboration that we need to make our consensus government work in order to achieve our common priorities. So I thank everyone for the hard work we've put in, but there's much more work ahead. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. To the motion. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it has been a long five weeks reviewing and deliberating on the 2024-2025 Budget. I put forward my reply to the Budget Address which spoke to my initial reaction to the budget, which was that I felt we needed to do more to focus or attention on the priorities agreed upon by this Assembly. To this end, I put forward some changes I wanted to see and supported those brought forward by my colleagues, many of which I agreed with, and the majority of which spoke directly to these priorities. AOC put in some long hours and managed to find consensus on a list of changes we wanted to see in order to receive our support for the budget.
I want to thank my colleagues for their hard work on those requests. It was a truly collaborative process and I think showed what committee can achieve when we work together. I was particularly proud that we were the first group of MLAs to put forward our demands publicly so our constituents could see what we're fighting for. I really appreciate that commitment to transparency and want to continue that.
Through the subsequent process of negotiation, I can say that we were able to push both the budget and the government's business plans further towards the priorities I want us to be focused on. I certainly did not get everything I was hoping for, but I'm not sure anyone on either side of the House can say that. And that tends to be the nature of negotiations, Mr. Speaker, particularly in our consensus system. Our system is structured in a way which necessitates compromise both between Cabinet and Regular Members and among all Members of this Assembly. There has been much debate about the merits and challenges of consensus government but time and again, the territories communicated that they want to continue using this system and, in particular, during this recent election I heard loud and clear from my constituents that they want to see us working together effectively and respectfully, and I am committed to doing just that.
I want to speak to a few things I consider small wins we were able to achieve and things I will continue to fight on because we didn't quite get there. As we were working on negotiations, our AOC chair, the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, asked us for our hills to die on, for him and our deputy chair from the Deh Cho to fight for in negotiations.
Mr. Speaker, my first hill to die on was housing. It is the first priority of this Assembly and, accordingly, I felt it needed further emphasis in this budget. Through deliberations, we advocated for and succeeded in obtaining increased money for housing maintenance and also for some specific projects. Housing NWT also laid out during deliberations the impressive amount of work scheduled for this year, which I am pleased to see moving forward.
Perhaps the most important thing that will help us truly move the needle on housing in our territory are the commitments in the business plan to do a comprehensive needs assessment for housing in the NWT and an infrastructure deficit assessment. While we did not succeed in attaching much money to these initiatives in this round, they will help us quantify the problem and provide a foundation of evidence to inform our budgets going forward. I want to thank the Minister responsible for Housing NWT for her strong leadership in pushing the department to get those initiatives completed more with quickly than initial planned. Well done. In return, I am committed to using the information generated by these reports to keep pushing the government to put its money behind ensuring that we are serious about addressing our housing crisis as our top priority.
My second hill to die on was pausing or removing income testing for extended health benefits. This policy change is adding hardship to a number of my constituents who are already struggling with disabilities or chronic illness, Mr. Speaker, and I do not support the change. This one came down to the wire. And although we did not get what I was looking for, I am pleased that we received concession on our request to at least increase the income threshold, which I hope remains in place, and I strongly encourage the Minister to fight to ensure that deductible payments are spread over the year for folks above the threshold to help lessen the blow from this change.
My third hill to die on was restoring midwifery services in Yellowknife. Again, we did not get exactly what we were looking for there, but we did get a concession, which is really not what I was looking to achieve but as I said to the president of the midwives association last night, we have at least opened a door which can lead us to a path to expanding midwifery services in what I hope will become many communities in the NWT over time. To Heather and Leslie and all of the midwifery champions who raised their voices, I continue to encourage you to push hard. We will get there, and you will have my full support along the way.
I also want to acknowledge the significant number of changes advocate the for the health care system which I haven't mentioned here but which were agreed to wholly or in part by the department, and I am hopeful that we can see some meaningful change in our health care system over the next year and will certainly keep fighting for it.
I want to particularly thank the Member for Yellowknife North for her hard work on bringing forward constructive and thoughtful recommendations for policy and practice changes in health, which I think could make a real difference. I also want to thank the Member for Range Lake who has been relentless in fighting for our nurses.
I would note that I haven't mentioned a number of items here which I was glad we achieved; namely, the increase to Aurora College's funding. I have spoken a lot to the importance of education during this session so I'm not going to repeat myself again here, Mr. Speaker, but I want to thank the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake in helping to bring forward some proposals which could help us move the needle on that initiative. It is such an important initiative for our territory, Mr. Speaker.
As an aside, with your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I would also like to extend a special thanks to my girlfriend Rayanna who has been holding down the house while I've been working long days and nights over the past number of weeks. You mean the world to me and are my number one supporter. I appreciate you so much.
Mr. Speaker, the question I was facing as I phoned constituents and collaborators to tell them that we got some small wins, but not everything we were asking for by any means, was whether I could support this budget. I went to bed with this question not completely settled in my mind but came to work today with a better sense of clarity. I think if I was to vote against the budget now after the hard work by myself and my colleagues to develop consensus, work together on our respective priorities for our ridings, after the finance Minister and Cabinet came to the table in good faith and worked with us to find something we could all disagree with on some level or another, it would not respect the work we all did to find consensus. From day one, I never came here expecting to get everything I want. I like to think that I bring a realistic and reasonable perspective to the table. And part of that is understanding that progress happens in incremental wins, by working collaboratively with our colleagues on their priorities and, in turn, receiving their support for our own and committing to keep the pressure on so that over time, piece by piece, we can turn small wins into big changes. To that end, Mr. Speaker, I will support this budget with a strong commitment to keep fighting for change going forward, to keep putting the pieces in place to ensure that change happens and gathering evidence which will make it harder to refuse the next time we deliberate. I care so deeply about this work, Mr. Speaker, and I will continue to put everything I have into it. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Member for Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank my colleague, the Member from Boot Lake, for showing me, working with me, and I also want to thank the Minister of Finance too. This has been a really learning experience for me, Mr. Speaker. It's my first six months here, learning how to do what we do and how to help people, how to get things moving, how to work together, and especially learning -- well, yeah, learning how to work together. I don't have a big speech like everybody else did but I support that, and I too will be -- and I want to thank -- I also want to thank all my colleagues, like everybody here, working with us. And I remember when I first got here and I said something to the effect of when you have a house, you got to figure out what's your priorities in your house then you figure out after if you're -- whatever you find is not working, you figure out how to fix that. You need money for that so that your budget comes into place and how you spend your money is how you're going to operate your house. So that's the same thing that we should work for, and we work together in this House so that way we have what we need.
Some of us are getting what we really need, some of us are not getting what we need, and that's okay, and that's the way things work. And so with that, I wanted to say I want to thank -- again, thank my colleagues, all the people that work here, and the people, the translators, the technical people. And also my family, my wonderful husband, my daughters, and my son, and do the thing that my daughter told me to do - now take a break. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I will be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Member from the Deh Cho. To the motion. Member from Yellowknife South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I spoke substantively yesterday in my role as Minister of Finance. I don't want to rehash that, but I do want to make a few comments, largely thank you's. And firstly, Mr. Speaker, it's to every single person that is in this building. The work of session is long and difficult and it can be very exhausting and emotional, and everyone from our pages to the folks that help feed us to the folks that are cleaning up after us, a heartfelt thank you because it certainly makes the day palatable. But also, Mr. Speaker, to the officials specifically who help keep us all on track and keep things moving. A lot of things have to move often very quickly, and they are the ones that are making that happen. Similarly, Mr. Speaker, the government executive office staff, they too are helping to move things quickly under difficult circumstances and often with fast-breaking changes, and they make it all happen with smiles so a significant thanks to them. Everyone here is a tremendous professional. So one more, Mr. Speaker, and that's the public service who aren't necessarily in this building but who are often watching us, who are often sending us information, sending us documents, responding to requests. And particularly in the budget session and particularly this particular negotiation, a lot of things were having to change across departments and often quickly. A lot of departments were being asked to revise, to review, to reconsider, to reexamine, documents, business plans, budgets that they had spent months putting together and they were being asked to quickly look at it and try to see what they could do to make change. So a lot of the ability to be in a consensus government but that thanks goes back to the entire, entire public service that is behind all of us that you happen to see here.
Mr. Speaker, the chair and deputy chair, very grateful to them. It has been a real pleasure. I think we've gotten to all know each other very much better, and I am very grateful to have them sitting with me and making these discussions. My colleagues here, Mr. Chair, I do want to give them a special shout out. They are very patient with me even when I am very impatient, and I am very grateful to them for that.
Mr. Speaker, very briefly -- again, I'm not going to say a lot. Five years ago was the first time that I had the privilege to take on this role and be in this, this was a financial transaction. It was a financial negotiation. But just as governments evolve and consensus can evolve, it has turned into something very different from that, and I am very proud of the fact that the kinds of discussions and the kinds of effort that our colleagues have put in has resulted not only in the items that I spoke to yesterday, I do hope that folks will look at the tabled document today, will look back at the asks that were made, because the document today outlines the entirety of what was agreed to. And, Mr. Speaker, it's eight pages long, has 41 items of change. I'm not going to read them all in. But there's significant business planning change, policy work, legislative proposals are being discussed therein, timelines, dollars are changing, how the dollars should be spent, so it's not only about a cash transaction here. It really is about government and how we can be a consensus government. So, again, with all of that gratitude, Mr. Speaker, I'll end there. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife South. To the motion.
Question.
