Thanks for having me.
Good morning, Chair, and members of the committee. My name is Mikey McBryan. I'm the general manager of Buffalo Airways in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
My father, Joe McBryan, was born in Yellowknife. He's Métis, and Buffalo Airways is 100% aboriginal-owned. He started Buffalo in 1970, so for 56 years we've been moving people, freight and supplies across the north. His history shows what can happen when a northerner gets the opportunity to build in the north, creating jobs, training and reinvesting in the place he came from.
The main point I want to make today is simple: Affordability in the north is not only about what things cost. It's about who controls the northern dollar and where that dollar goes.
Almost everything we use has transportation built into it. Groceries, lumber, hockey sticks and aircraft parts from all over the world have to travel a long way to get to the north. Transportation runs on fuel. Fuel is Buffalo's biggest expense. When policy makes fuel more expensive through taxes, fees and regulation, the cost does not stop with the airline. It moves into freight, groceries, construction and, ultimately, the cost of living.
Someone living downtown here in Ottawa may have lots of transportation choices, but in many northern communities, there's no other option. Airplanes still have to fly, trucks still have to move and groceries still have to arrive. Northern realities have to be considered before policies are designed to increase the price of energy.
I also have to question the idea of collecting more money and then returning it through rebates in government programs. Even when revenues return, it's not the same as leaving the decision with northerners in the first place. Once the money leaves your pockets, someone else decides how it comes back and what it should support.
The north does not grow through greater dependency on programs designed to compensate for the higher costs. It grows through sustainable, independent economic growth: northern businesses, northern workers, northern investment and northerners deciding what northerners need. Not every Buffalo employee lives permanently in the north. We have people who rotate in, but we prioritize hiring local because we want to build northern careers, not simply fill jobs in the north.
The same principle should apply to government spending. The lowest invoice is not always the whole economic story. We should ask how much of the money remains in the north and what capacity it leaves behind. The question becomes even more important when we look at natural resources.
Before there was a highway, before there was a runway and before there was a modern mine, people were already living in the north. Indigenous people have lived on these lands since time immemorial. Modern infrastructure did not make the north a home; it was already home. My own family has been connected to northern mining for generations. My great-grandfather was in Yellowknife looking for gold more than a century ago. I'm now the fourth generation of a northern mining family, so I'm not opposed to development. Resource development is part of my family's history, but roads, airports and transportation corridors not only give northerners access to the rest of Canada. They give Canada and the world access to the north.
For generations, the north has been one of the world's great piggy banks of resources. Today, the world is again looking north for the resources needed for the next generation of technology and industry.
The world may need what is beneath the northern ground, but need does not mean entitlement. There is power in having something the world needs, and the power is deciding how, when and whether it is developed. When development happens, the question should be this: What does it leave behind? It's northern businesses, northern infrastructure, northern careers and northern wealth. The north should not simply be a place where wealth is extracted and carried away. It should be a place where wealth is built.
If there's one thing I would ask the committee to do, it's to follow the dollar. When the fuel costs rise, when government buys northern transportation and when the northern resources are developed, where does that dollar go? The long-term answer to northern affordability is not simply finding new ways to send money north. It is creating an economy where more northern money has a reason to stay in the north in the first place.
Thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to answer your questions.
Was that under five minutes?