Thank you, Mr. Speaker. New year, new budget, same problems. Here we go again.
Mr. Speaker, we are in a moment, and it is a moment of unprecedented change in the world that we once knew. We have heard our Prime Minister talk about this. We've heard our Premier talk about this. We've heard the Finance Minister talk about this earlier today. And we just heard the chair of the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight talk about it as well. And it is beholden on all governments in Canada to move to meet this moment but, in particular, this one, because the systems that we've always relied on to save us when we are experiencing downturns just aren't there anymore.
Mr. Speaker, our economy is shrinking - 10 percent smaller than devolution and pre-pandemic levels. That represents half a billion dollars lost in GDP production. Mineral exploration is in decline and has been for some time. And not only is it in decline, but the alarm bells have been ringing on decline for quite some time, even longer than the more recent statistics, something we raised in this House with our red alert.
Mr. Speaker, adult employment is in decline. The number of working people is in decline. Youth unemployment is 10 percent higher than the rest of Canada. Power rates are continuing to drive people from the Northwest Territories, unpredicted increases, despite efforts to conserve, to convert to clean energy. Everything gets more expensive. Affordability is out of control. Imperial Oil's Norman Wells operation is shutting down. Diavik is shutting down. Even the Capitol theatre here in Yellowknife is shutting down. When Northerners are surrounded by these obvious signs of concern and not only concern, of a real problem getting worse, they look to their government for support, especially in a territory where government services and government direction is crucial to leading the overall economy. And that leadership has been absent.
Mr. Speaker, when I ask how many jobs this budget will create or how much growth will it foster in the economy, I am told we don't know that right now, we'll have to look into it. It's more of a federal budget thing.
It should be a this-budget thing. It should be the top priority of this government, especially when we know the challenges facing the economy. The Yellowknife and NWT Chambers of Commerce are right in their open letter. Quote: Our economy hasn't grown in more than 20 years while every other province and territory has. The stark reality is proof that what we have been doing for a generation has not worked and continuing down the same path is not an option. And yet we see a budget that is more or less status quo with a few new initiatives bolted to the hood.
Mr. Speaker, this is either reckless optimism that something is going to come along and save us or calculated denial to avoid accountability for being the key decision maker on economic matters.
The future this budget and the GNWT writ large is building amounts to a planned economy of public administration jobs supported by a thin service sector to support them. We do not need to diversify away from natural resources which is the core, the stable foundation of our economy. We need to diversify away from government jobs.
Mr. Speaker, through years of sessional statements, budget addresses, policy papers and the like, the brain trust of this government has convinced many Northerners that the NWT is unable to chart its own course, too small to resist the pressures of national and international forces. How often do we hear from our constituents, from community leaders, from business owners - well, we know the government's broke. How do they know that? Because the government keeps telling them that.
Mr. Speaker, we have more money as a government than any other government in the territory. That gives us capacity to do what no one else can, and we need to start realizing that capacity. Our government has successfully lowered Northerners' expectations of what it can deliver to the point where underachievement is the standard for results, that what limited and incremental progress we make is all that is possible. This is what is called the soft bigotry of low expectations. Once famously argued for racist systems of education that essentially said we don't believe minorities are smart enough to succeed, this soft prejudice applies as well to the system that dominates our politics and traps Ministers, MLAs, and public servants in the same cycle of un-achievement. And this is simply not true. We are only as limited as we allow ourselves to be as the top decision makers for the territory. And these self-appointed limits are why the government moves so slowly to position itself to seize on opportunities to unlock our true potential.
If I have an ideology, it's one that believes in the art of possible and the power of aspiration, that the possibility to use our talent, drive, and natural resources to push above and beyond our weight is possible. I believe in ambitious public policy, taking risks, even in making mistakes if it means achieving bigger, better things for the people we represent. But we're not seeing that from this or indeed past budgets. This budget and the low expectations it sets out are a product of the system, a system of the internal economy of the GNWT, where the needs of the system are handled first and the needs of the territory and the people within it are considered secondary. Where the tail wags the dog.
Yes, there are some nice things to grab your attention in this budget: New 24/7 lab services in Yellowknife, long overdue investments in emergency preparedness, the survivor-led residential school monument, and more funding to build Indigenous capacity with our partner governments. But look closely and you'll find most of the new spending is, indeed, forced growth, maintaining policies and programs that are and seemingly always will be.
So how did we get here when elected leaders are always saying we're doing all that we can to invest in the Northwest Territories and do things differently?
Our collective budget process is one that can be defined by information overload. Members are bombarded with information and, paradoxically, this often leads to poor decision-making. For example, it is estimated that information overload of this magnitude costs the US economy roughly $650 billion a year in lost productivity and innovation. So it's entirely relevant to why change is so stubborn in this place of government. If we are serious about making progress quickly and effectively, then we should be first focused on the problems we want to solve, then review how the GNWT proposes to solve them along with the core functions of government. Instead, advocacy for our constituents and the communities we serve is on the back end of this process after the system has already produced its plans. Instead of proposing big ideas and finding ways to implement them, we are left playing tug-of-war between Cabinet and Regular Members over how to best use limited public resources. And in the end, no one wins. Those big ideas are watered down. Even Cabinet-led initiatives that are outside the GNWT comfort zone are whittled down by so-called risk management and internal resource demands or any other excuse why we can't go as far as we want to.
So perhaps someone does win in the end, Mr. Speaker - the status quo and those who want it to continue. This is the system that we are all up against, those who are fighting for change, the internal economy of the GNWT. Bureaucrats who know if they can just delay political pressure from Ministers and Members for four years, they can avoid real change, well-connected insiders who live fat off government procurement instead of innovating their own businesses, lawyers advising public and Indigenous governments to take longer and longer to make decisions that stretch regulatory and lawmaking processes from months to years. But don't worry, it's all billable hours. These are the forces sabotaging our efforts to build a prosperous and secure Northwest Territories. We need to stop this, Mr. Speaker, and that starts here in this chamber and the highest levels of government. If we continue to defend inefficient and ineffective systems and treat them as sacred to our governing institutions, then nothing will indeed ever change. Well, that's not true. Things will, in fact, get worse.
Look at our GDP. Look at our public debt. Look at our active employment numbers and tell me our system is working. Tell me that hope and optimism will sustain a future where there has been no plan whatever to prepare us for the moment we find ourselves in now, where our natural resource sector is shutting down on known timelines. This is not a surprise, and we have no plan to meet the moment. But Ottawa won't let us starve. That's true. But planning on what amounts to a federal bailout of territorial, economic, and social management is not my definition of peace, order, and good government. When politicians tell the system it needs to change to meet the moment and that system says we simply can't afford it, but we are the ones who are elected to make those decisions. If we say do it, it needs to get done, even if there's some risk, even if it impacts the delicate balancing act of that same internal economy. Again, no one is stopping Members from realizing our shared ambition except the Members themselves.
This budget is not a product of true consensus government. It's not a representation of the collective goals and priorities our people elected us to deliver for them. It is a product of this system, and the system doesn't like this kind of speech, Mr. Speaker. The system wants us to get into the weeds, focus on a handful of operational issues or low-cost investments in our ridings, a job here, a school there, a road here. Mr. Speaker, it doesn't -- but otherwise, otherwise for those handful of issues, we're expected to support everything it does without any real resistance while elected officials continue to make decisions that aren't really decisions and ride the wave towards economic decline and political irrelevance. This is about box ticking rather than meaningful collaboration. It is not true consensus.
That would be all Members, Cabinet and Regular, working together, talking about what we need for our ridings, what we need for our territory, and then looking at the budget to see how we meet those needs, not to proofread the system's homework and fight for crumbs at the table. This is not about being a Regular Member or a Cabinet Member. It is about being part of this system or being part of people trying to change that system.
The gravy train is running out. Even if you are benefiting from the system today, you soon won't be. Most of these people who are beneficiaries of it will likely leave the Northwest Territories and find new opportunities to exploit. But those of us who will stay, who truly call the NWT home, especially Indigenous people who have been here since time immemorial, we will be left starting over, worse off than before. It doesn't have to be like this, though, Mr. Speaker. We can use this budget and all the other spending before the next election to make real and lasting change, to end this system of eternal economy and build a better future for our kids and grandkids. But to achieve that incremental change isn't good enough. Slow and steady does not win the race when the safe and predictable world that used to exist has come crashing down around us. Northerners need leaders who will disrupt, innovate, and actually build better governments responsive to the needs of the people we represent, of the challenges and opportunities of today.
Mr. Speaker, I have yet to see a budget in this Assembly that really does that. And I don't expect to see one either, not as long as the perpetuators of this system remain in charge and fall victim to their own soft bigotry of what this government can achieve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Replies to the -- children, thank you. Replies to the budget address, day 1 of 7. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
