Thank you very much, Mr. Premier and all of the honourable ministers, for being here today.
I did have the opportunity with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development to go to the territories as we were studying barriers to development a number of years ago. Certainly we met some amazing individuals. I noticed in some of your material that you were talking about your aboriginal-owned businesses. The people we met, and I've continued to say this for years, are some of the best CEOs you could find; it wouldn't matter where they were. Here in the rest of Canada, we should be proud of the expertise that is there and the great work that is done.
I know that one of the problems we have here is the economy. You're having some problems as well in the same way because you have great natural resources that are taking a hit right now. Coming from Alberta, we're well aware of some of the concerns that are there. Again, you've had $1.281 billion in federal transfers, $44 million in Canada health transfer, $16 million in Canada social transfer, $1.22 million in territorial formula financing, but it's even less. It's less money than it was last year. These are concerns that we have. Even the Canada health transfer is budgeted for less than 3% for next year. Hopefully that's something the federal government is going to take a look at.
Again, when we look at energy, and we look at the situations that occur there, I was speaking with a number of folks earlier today, and I think I was the only one old enough to know about the Mackenzie Valley pipeline debate. If we wanted to talk energy, maybe some of these things could have been of benefit over the years. They may or may not have fit into some of the solutions that we could have had. Again, that's gone by the wayside.
I'm just wondering if you could expand a little more because we are looking at a broadband study later on. We have some unique ideas as far as making sure that you build fibre as you're building roads. I think that's a critical thing that people have to be aware of.
Can you expand upon how your work in that area is going to help the communities that you serve? Perhaps you could comment on some of my other rants as well.