Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to my colleagues in recent days discuss this year's budget. I tried to match what my colleagues, especially from the small communities, are saying about their plans and how my colleagues here on the Regular Member site are reaching for their communities. I have listened to their needs every day in session and committees. Together we are working for our communities which are always at the margin of the services, opportunity and power.
When I was first elected, I entered this Assembly in the by-election. I brought the concerns of my communities forward, but I was told the agenda was already set. It felt like the train had left the station and I was chasing it after to jump onto it, but it was too late. When I was re-elected, I was ready to get to work right from the start. I had my priorities from years of collaboration with my community leaders and listening to my constituents. I sent in my priority list to the Premier and the Cabinet. I started with capital planning because communities needed new schools, new recreation centres, and pumping stations. Yet, I saw very little of my priorities reflected. It struggled to even just get a junction light by Fort Resolution.
Beyond capital planning, what about my people's services. What about medical travel programs that works for my people in emergencies? Health care is a treaty right, yet time and time again my people are going to the bands for funding. For medical escorts, for aftercare services, these aren't their responsibility; they are the GNWT treaty obligation. What about the millions of being cut from Jordan Principal from our schools? The consequences are less teachers, aides, less Indigenous programming, less in school services for disabilities and Indigenous students. This amounts to a huge step backwards in Indigenous education when we should be Indigenizing education.
Decades of work in progress for our children is being rolled back. When a Member from the Mackenzie Delta spoke, I agreed with him on many of his points. It is because it's so obvious that our treaty rights are not being honoured. These are not abstract concerns; they are demonstrated and they have consequences on our whole territory.
My colleague from Inuvik Boot Lake in his comments spoke about how our government keeps describing change but not taking action. But taking action means leadership. Empty words are what happens when there is a lack of leadership. And we lack leadership on the right and needs of our Indigenous communities, because they do not have equitable power they are left with.
The Member of the Yellowknife Centre spoke about dependency. Why is this government creating so much dependency? Our mines are closing and there are no new developments in sight. This will impact our community's employment and investment. It shouldn't take this long to create an environment for investment. It shouldn't be this hard to partner with Indigenous governments to make investments happen. So we are back to dependency of the federal government for a transfer and if we don't have a strong economy and healthy people, then this budget does not address those needs. So our people will depend on the government because they don't have meaningful employment, of access to services that were promised to them in the treaties.
The saying goes the more things change, the more things stay the same. This is where our government is falling back to where we were before the GNWT obtained power from Ottawa. And that is because this government has not shaken its colonial perspectives. And the longer it takes to cast off those vestiges of colonialism, the worse our problems are getting. Because we are falling behind. And this Assembly, I fear, we won't be able to turn the tide unless we act.
But taking action means sharing power with Indigenous governments. This government knows that because of what every leadership candidate recognizes during their leadership committee. The Premier himself spoke of a 50-year vision towards a future of the North where shared power and decentralized services. This is the only way we can move forward the future together. Instead, we are stalled with a budget like this because the colonial government believes first and foremost it needs to protect its power. But soon that power will just be a paper because Ottawa will be subsidizing everything, the farther will fall behind.
This means our community is scrambling for a bigger piece of the Shaker's budget. Because their needs will stack up. Unhealthier people, more unemployment, less education, less housing, more capacity leaving the communities and leaving the North.
This is why we need the structure to reform from the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People and act because those structures we form, one that we realize will change how these budgets will be created. I was here when the last Assembly passed Bill 85 which directed this government to implement UNDRIP. It was a momentous occasion that promised to be very beneficial for First Nations and Indigenous governments across the North. We believe it was not just empty words but a plan for action.
The UNDRIP declaration provides a framework for reconciliation, healing, and peace. It reaffirms the rights of Indigenous people, recognizes in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution.
After that vote in the previous Assembly, work now must be done to factor this declaration into all our decision-making process. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlighted in their calls for action as well further to UNDRIP.
All MLAs in this House made an oath to honour and respect treaties signed with Indigenous people when we took office. The treaties were always the law of the land. They're backed up by international legal standards which were reaffirmed in these chambers. Indigenous governments and organizations across the territory have also signed the NWT Council of Leaders memorandum of understanding. So we could have a meaningful way to measure the true reconciliation.
It was reported on Thursday that the government expected to spend $2.7 billion in the 2026-2027 Budget. The majority of that money will come from the federal government transfer.
For every dollar in federal transfer, a big portion comes from Crown, Indigenous and northern Affairs. This comes after the government increased their borrowing limit again - more and more money just to get us by not addressing the root cause which we have all seen coming for decades.
Mr. Speaker, more than 50 percent of the population is Indigenous, Metis and Inuit. And yet the GNWT does not consult Indigenous governments about how to use that money they receive from the Government of Canada. Even though much of the transfer to the GNWT is supposed to fund their services. And yet as our community continues to grow, the public service in Yellowknife continues to grow. Our public service is larger than it was proportionally when Nunavut and the NWT were one territory. And these aren't doctors, nurses, teachers. It's administrators, managers in Yellowknife.
This is how the colonial system looks out for itself. The resources first go to Yellowknife and then what's left goes to the communities. Therefore, the territorial government's budgeting still fails treaty rights by refusing to recognize the intent of these transfers and ignores duties to consult Indigenous governments on how these funds should be spent in contravention of UNDRIP. According to the action plan committee's 2024 Annual Report, an action plan has still not been published, and any meaningful steps to the implementation of UNDRIP remains unfinished. This continued lack of consultation pertains to many other ways such as through the scrapping of affirmative action without asking Indigenous governments, and to Aurora College closing 19 community learning centres and Indigenous communities, which come as a total surprise.
And every day this session, I am impressed by the Minister for Health and Social Services to uphold our treaty rights to health care. And no change. I will continue pressing this government for change.
I will press the Minister for ECE for an income assistance program that works for our people and our properly funded education system. I will press the House Minister to work with the federal government to empower our Indigenous governments to build homes. But despite the Minister's mandate letters calling for a consensus government and honouring treaties, some departments are just going full steam ahead to the end of their term and leaving our communities behind.
This is not how consensus government is supposed to work. We are here to work together, and this is not the future that was promised when our ancestors signed the treaties a century ago. Just because there are new levels of government, it doesn't mean those rights are no longer real.
So when I rise to oppose this budget, I am not standing in opposition. I am standing in favour of working together of consensus government. Because the most important is the consensus in our communities to uphold our rights and meet our needs to create a collaboration government of respect and dignity we have left in our two years of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Replies to the budget address, day 7 of 7
