Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to join my colleagues on this mini-theme day regarding the economy. But first I'm going to set the table.
Mr. Speaker, some of us, Mr. Testart and I in particular, have asked the government to prorogue. And the reason we do proroguing is to reset the government's refocus and align its mandates. Mr. Speaker, it's true the economy is listed as one of the four mandate pillars, but it doesn't feel like that. Mr. Speaker, the opportunity being missed here is, frankly, that the federal government has changed, maybe our focus has changed, or maybe our focus should align with those who have the bags of money that we continually count on, because government building more government is not a true economy, Mr. Speaker.
So what is the economy right now? Well, if you speak to the folks on the street, there's nothing but fear. That's the economy. It's the economy of concern and worry about where we're going in the future. It's not a day that goes by I don't hear someone talk about how they're afraid that there's no mine on the future. Now, the government will say well, we're investing in training. By the time next year rolls around, potentially the risk of those thousand jobs moving out of the Northwest Territories, it'll be too late to train anyone. And by the time NICO, Pine Point, Prairie Creek, or Nechalacho comes online, five, ten years from now, all of those workers are long gone, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there will be no one to train, to retool.
You know, we've bought into the mantra and we chanted you will never get another diamond, that's true. But we have ways we can fix that, Mr. Speaker. The mining industry has come forward and said yes, we want an independent mining committee to look at the decline. We could bring back people like Bob McLeod, fantastic people who are in business, like Daryl Bealieau and others in the industry who can talk about what would change the narrative.
Mr. Speaker, I'm prepared to eat my hat today in the sense of I often thought Bob McLeod was off the page. What's happening? He's turning into the Metis Churchill. Goodness sakes. Ten years ago, he said this was important, and some of us gave him a hard time but it's turning out he was true. He turned the page way ahead of us, Mr. Speaker. So when he called for a red alert on the economy, Mr. Speaker, he must have felt something or knew something we didn't know. So I join my colleague, Mr. Testart, in saying I agree the red alert matters because we need to be asking ourselves the serious, serious question: Where is the tax credit for mining? We need to immediately modernize our ten-year system for mineral staking, settle land claims, and approve many other things that we can do. We should get our blue chip committee telling us how do we turn the page and get our economy back rolling forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Members' statements.
