Some NWT MLAs say budget doesn’t do enough to advance priorities

Some regular MLAs say the NWT’s new budget does little to advance the 20th Legislative Assembly’s priorities.

Finance minister Caroline Wawzonek delivered the 2025-26 operating budget on Thursday, which she described as “using the resources that we have for change” amid a time of uncertainty.

Wawzonek said the proposed budget represented “stability for today and tomorrow” without what she termed as “dramatic additions.”

The budget will go to a vote in the coming weeks. Cabinet needs the support of enough regular MLAs that a majority of territorial politicians back the financial plan in order for it to pass. There are seven cabinet members in the 19-member legislature, while the speaker only votes in the case of a tie.

Four regular MLAs criticized the draft budget on Thursday, saying it does not do enough to invest in the assembly’s vision for the territory while also failing to address fiscal sustainability.

In a reply to the budget in the legislature that he also posted online, Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart said just six percent of planned spending will go toward the assembly’s stated priorities.

On the flip side, Testart noted the budget will fail to reach targets in the government’s fiscal sustainability strategy.

“This government needs to take fiscal sustainability seriously or stop talking about it altogether because we’re trying nothing and we’re all out of ideas,” he said.

Testart said the territory has the “potential to be so much more” and proposed a lengthy list of changes he would like to see in the budget.

His proposals included doubling the mineral incentive program, expanding community funding to 100 percent of money requested by communities, cutting Aurora College’s funding by 30 percent, creating new oil and gas exploration subsidies, regulating online gambling, building 500 new homes, cutting income taxes, and increasing funding to NWT Tourism by $500,000.

‘A pretty status quo budget’

Frame Lake MLA Julian Morse said he was “a bit unsure how to react” to the budget.

“There’s not a whole lot in there to get very angry or particularly excited about,” he said, describing it as “a pretty status quo budget.”

“I’m not seeing big, big changes and I’m not seeing big initiatives either.”

Reviewing the budget, Morse said the story he sees is the NWT government struggling to manage its finances effectively, which is affecting its ability to meaningfully advance priorities.

Morse said the government is, however, “heading in the right direction” in some areas, such as work to improve the financial sustainability of healthcare and advance community safety.

He praised cabinet’s decision to establish a healthcare sustainability unit and appoint a public administrator over the NWT’s health authority, a move that has been criticized by some Indigenous leaders and members of the former healthcare leadership council.

Still, Morse said the assembly has not done enough to establish targets to measure progress on its priorities.

In some cases, he said, “our biggest struggle is communicating what success is going to look like for this government.”

Like Testart, Morse pointed to the budget’s challenges meeting fiscal sustainability targets. As a former Yellowknife city councillor, he compared the municipality’s efforts to present a balanced budget every year, which it must do by law, to the territorial government, where he said he has not seen “the same level of penny pinching.”

“The government has very nice buildings, they have very nice offices, they have nice vehicles. There’s many things that tell me this is not a government that is trying to squeeze the most out of every possible dollar that we have,” he said.

‘Small communities do matter’

Richard Edjericon, the MLA for Tu Nedhé-Wiilideh, said he was “disappointed” items on his wish list for his district did not make it into the operating budget. He said those included a winter road, dust suppression, housing and home repairs in Łútsël K’é, a new school in Dettah, and a new community hall in Ndılǫ.

“Small communities do matter but nobody’s listening,” he said.

MLAs passed the capital budget for 2025-26 in late 2024. The capital budget plans spending on new buildings and other infrastructure projects. The draft operating budget revealed this week addresses the entirety of NWT government operations and aims to use a projected $170 million operating surplus to pay for some of the $339 million capital budget.

Edjericon said the NWT government is superseding treaties by failing to consult Indigenous leaders and communities about their needs and budget spending, particularly on housing and healthcare. He said he was also concerned he could not identify funding in the budget to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

“We’ve got to do better and do Crown consultation and accommodation,” he said, adding he plans to write a letter to King Charles indicating that “the treaties of Canada and the Northwest Territories are not honoured and respected.”

Speaking to reporters before tabling the budget, Wawzonek said the document isn’t organized by community.

“It can be difficult for someone to go back to their riding and say, ‘Look, this is what we’re getting out of this,'” she said.

The finance minister pointed to funding for communities such as the Community Access Program, Small Community Employment Support Program and Territorial Power Support Program. She said small communities also tend to benefit more from diversification initiatives.

The budget also includes $6.3 million to support communities with increased operations funding and $4.2 million to enhance basic funding for utilities and winter road costs.

‘We should be talking about our optimism’

Finally, Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins said in the legislature Thursday that the budget “wasn’t all terrible” but it did not adequately address priorities related to healthcare, housing, public safety and improving the economy.

“Our budget should be telling the story about our mineral resource innovation, our doctor innovation, our nursing innovation,” he said.

“We should be talking about our optimism, the things we can do.”

Other MLAs are expected to deliver their responses to the budget over the next week.