Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, every year when we receive the operations budget, our finance department publishes an economic review which assesses the state of our economy against a framework of macroeconomic indicators. The 2025-2026 review was certainly concerning, speaking to a downturn in the diamond industry, challenges growing our workforce, and little success in achieving growth in other sectors.
We are doing a good job of identifying and summarizing our economic challenges, and it's certainly a depressing read. What's missing, however, and really stands out to me when I read the economic review, is robust and targeted strategy to respond to these challenges. This is something that has been raised as a concern in several iterations of the NWT environmental audit. In 2020, the audit found that there was insufficient evidence that the economic opportunities strategy was effective at achieving its objectives. The GNWT agreed with the recommendation and committed to developing regional economic development plans in response. However, the 2025 audit noted that industry expressed continued frustration in the lack of policy direction and concrete advancement by GNWT noting that the mineral development strategy is yet to be updated. Further, the audit found that the regional economic development plans do not constitute an economic development strategy. They are summaries of opportunities and potential areas of focus as identified participants in the process but do not constitute plans or strategies with specific activities, responsible leads, timelines, or performance measures. They are useful summaries at a regional level but do not constitute an economic development strategy as per the recommendation.
In response to these findings, the GNWT re-emphasized the importance of the regional plans and noted they will help to inform a broader NWT economic vision and strategy the Minister of ITI has a mandate to develop. But we are two years into the mandate of this government and are yet to see this strategy come forward or get an indication of when we can expect to review a draft. I am concerned that what progress is being made may be going in a similar direction as previous strategies which have found us taking a catch-all approach to development, trying to do a little bit of everything rather than taking a strategic and targeted approach which responds directly to the challenges we're facing. I would like to get reassurance that we are not repeating our past mistakes and also that we are going to get an effective strategy on the table as soon as possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Members' statements. Member from Range Lake.
