Thank you for that.
There's really no end to the things that the federal government could do for us, to be quite frank about it.
When we put a pause on, we were in the middle of a budget session as well. Rather than push through a budget at the very tail end of our session and at the beginning of the COVID situation, we are right now operating on an interim appropriation. We are heading back sometime in the spring, likely under some sort of varied types of rules—as I know you're experiencing there as well—in order to recall our House and to pass an actual budget. However, where the projections we had previously were for a surplus, we're now going to be looking at likely some very different revenue projections.
There are two things I'd highlight there. One is around the process that we're going to have to go through. We do have a consensus government up here, so our system is a bit different from most of the other provincial and territorial governments across Canada. It's going to take some additional engagement and outreach for us to really bring back a measure of engagement with all the different stakeholders and indigenous governments, community governments, to help assure them that we are identifying what's going on on the ground across the Northwest Territories when we do come back.
In terms of the actual substance of what's happening, with the different revenue projections that we have now, as we try to see into the future as to how COVID-19 will evolve and how our response is going to evolve, there is really little doubt that we're going to need some fiscal flexibility. I think I heard someone earlier talk about putting some “skin in the game”. Quite frankly, the territorial government wants to be putting that skin in the game, but we're going to need some flexibility in order to do that effectively, given that our own source revenues right now are really being rather decimated.
Beyond that, it's the idea of looking even further, looking into the future of what we want our economy to be a year from now, two years from now or five years from now, and trying to see this as an opportunity rather than just being mired in the day-to-day business, which we still have to get done. The Arctic and northern policy framework really identifies a lot of the challenges that exist across the north. If we're going to be doing some bigger-picture stimulus, let's look there and find out what our opportunities are that will provide stimulus immediately to get some projects going, whether it's at a planning stage or whether it's actually at a shovel-ready stage. Either one of those will be a benefit. And what can we do to then fix some of these underlying problems that have really come into strong relief? I've heard others talk about some of them.
I see the hand signal going up. I'll stop there.