(Check against delivery)

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

It is a pleasure to be in Seattle, and to once again have an opportunity to address the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region forum.

The territory represented by PNWER, and the jurisdictions it represents, embody the very best of both Canada and America – hard work, ingenuity, respectful and sustainable development of resources, productive competition, creativity, innovation, and cooperative coexistence.

Our states, provinces and territories are leaders on the continent in economic growth, economic productivity, and economic responsiveness.  We should all be proud of the achievements we have made individually, but also collectively as an increasingly integrated economic region, in working toward a sustainable prosperity for the long-term, that will benefit all of our residents. 

Our combined population, as a region, is approximately 23 million people.  Our combined Gross Domestic Product as a region is over a trillion dollars annually.  We have achieved this as a region through a unique set of attitudes and hard work that have propelled us to lead this continent in economic growth and regional economic integration.  On the USA side alone, within PNWER, 360 thousand jobs in the five northwest states depend on trade with Canada.

In the Northwest Territories we have a population of approximately 43,000. We are a small territory that contains 1.7 million square kilometres, including some of the most inhospitable regions of Canada.  But also, some of the richest in terms of natural wealth and some of the most spectacular scenery ideal for tourism.

Our Gross Domestic Product per capita is ranked Number One in the country.  Our territory has significant mineral and energy reserves that can feed not only the needs of our region, of our country, of our shared continent, and the world.

Being from the Northwest Territories, and serving the people of the Northwest Territories, I understand the ironies, the challenges and the traditions that have not only marked our way of living and our approach to economic and social development, but also underpin our success.

Unlike the vast majority of my colleagues and counterparts here from other governments, we have a consensus-based system in our legislature.  To some, it is like a perpetual state of minority government.  It means conciliation, compromise, and mutual respect.  Our very structure requires cooperation among communities, among regions, among representatives of differing political points of view, and compromise between disparate interests.

Resource development has been the red-hot economic sector that has buoyed the economies of both our countries for the last several years.  We all know that.  It is in the world of mining, of pipelines, of rights-of-way, of royalty negotiations, of Aboriginal engagement, of community consultation – that cooperation is most essential.

Sustainable, long-term prosperity requires long-term thinking and long-term strategies and long-term partnerships.

That means consensus.  That means outreach.  That means dialogue.  It means collaboration.  It means compromise.  And, perhaps above all, it means respect.

We have seven Aboriginal governments in the Northwest Territories.  We do not see our Aboriginal communities as stakeholders who need to be won over.  We very much see our Aboriginal communities as full partners in our governance, in our policy formulation, and in our economic development.

We have eleven official languages in the Northwest Territories.

So, what is going on in the North?  What have we been working on?  What are our challenges?

Number One:  Infrastructure.

The single biggest challenge for a vast territory with a small population, and where economic development often requires access to remote regions….. is infrastructure.

Former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker – a half century ago – talked about a road to riches in Canada’s North.  He was the first to talk about a road to the far north, to the Beaufort Sea, to facilitate access of all Canadians to the High Arctic, and to facilitate access of Northern Canadians to the markets and supply chains of the South.

A half-century later it is with the collaboration and faith of another Prime Minister – Stephen Harper – that we are on the verge of completing the Diefenbaker vision.  We are currently completing the final stretch of the Mackenzie Valley Highway – completing the link from Inuvik to Tuktoyuktuk – thus, in essence, completing the road link from the Arctic Ocean to the road transportation infrastructure, processing facilities, distribution systems and markets of the Pacific NorthWest.

We recognize that this region, in which we are meeting today, is one of the fastest growing economic zones of North America.  We realize that through the infrastructure investments required to integrate ourselves into this region, everyone will come out a winner.  This is why The Northwest Territories became a full member of PNWER in 2009, and why we increasingly see our economic fortunes intrinsically linked with those of the Pacific NorthWest economy.

This collective economy requires both growth and investment to continue to advance.  Growth and investment, in turn, require confidence.

That means a number of things.  For those of us in government, it means facilitating trade flows.  It means resisting protectionist urges that hamper the free exchange of goods, labour and capital.  It also means continuing to adopt pro-growth policies that encourage investment into our collective geographical zone.

For our business members and colleagues, it means responsible practices that help encourage a pro-development attitude within the communities where we want to do business.  It also means reinvesting, and not sitting on capital – reinvesting in operations, reinvesting in modernization of equipment, reinvesting in labour training, and reinvesting in infrastructure.  These are the measures of a healthy economy, which in turn inspire the confidence to others to do business here and to invest here.

I have no doubt that, together, we will continue on the road to realizing PNWER’s shared values of greater economic integration, trade, and shared interests.

It is an odd idiosyncrasy that, in Canada, we still do not have fully free trade between provinces and territories.  Canada is celebrating a quarter-century of free trade with the United States – and has since signed free trade agreements with nearly fifty countries – we still have significant trade barriers between our own internal jurisdictions.

Similarly, in response to the 2008 global economic downturn, we saw a rise in “Buy America” policy – not just patriotic sentiment encouraging people to buy local, no.  Significant and damaging procurement policies that affected hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of North American supply chain, and introduced artificial new inefficiencies to the North American economy at precisely the worst possible time.

Fortunately, neither of these sentiments are dominant, nor even strong, cultures within our collective economic region of Western Canada and the Northwest U.S.  Our mindset is one of breaking down economic and trade barriers rather than erecting new ones.  Our attitude is one of strengthening economic partnerships and facing new economic partners together.

For years, the Western world has marvelled at the economic rise of China – a superpower of 1.3 billion, with a growing middle class and a rapid rate of urbanization.

For resource economies, the rise of such a giant means tremendous opportunity.  For our territory alone, this has meant significant new potential markets – certainly, significant interest – in everything from oil to natural gas to diamonds to rare-earth metals to furs.  Doing business in China tends to be for the long-term.  It may take time to cement the relationship, but once you do, it is a relationship that can endure for generations.

So when China looks to North America, it looks to us – to the PNWER states, provinces and territories.  We are the gateway.

There are new challenges on the horizon, however.

Even just a year ago – certainly two years ago, it appeared that China’s rapid economic development meant an insatiable appetite for North American resources.  But economies change.  The “insatiable China” suddenly appears satiable.  Forecasts suggest a lower consumption of our North American resources than expected last year or the year before.  And the Chinese market is not only being sought by our economies – it is being sought by others – the Russian, the Burmese, and others who are just as eager to gain a large slice of the economic pie through favourable trade agreements and investment policies.  This means we have to be even more competitive than we thought just a short while back. Do it rapidly, and do it in a way that can maintain a North American competitive edge in an increasingly integrated and competitive world economy.

This coming January 2015, myself and Minister Ramsay will lead another Northwest Territories trade delegation to China for this very reason.  This will be my fifth trip to China.

These are not easy challenges.  We simply cannot afford to put all of our eggs in one basket.

If we want to capitalize on the economic opportunities that the massive Asian market represents – particularly in a time of increased challenges – we simply cannot lose sight of the need to continue to develop the major projects required to fully harness our economic potential.

We need to expand our hydroelectricity generation.  We need to get our pipelines built to take our products to tidewater.  We need to get serious about LNG for export – which means compression facilities and export terminals on our coasts.  This is how we will tackle and overcome our current barriers to benefiting fully from the economic and prosperity opportunity that Asia represents for all of us.

These same challenges and opportunities apply to the Northwest Territories.  We currently have plans in place to build an electricity grid that will facilitate new resource projects while simultaneously reducing our dependence on diesel.  As well, we need to take advantage of renewable and alternative forms of energy.

Pipelines.  Back at home, the Mackenzie Valley Natural Gas pipeline project has become the poster child for how not to do certain things.  The due diligence work was completed.  The environmental safeguards were built in.  The community consultation was successful along the entire route.  The partnerships were all put in place!

The environmental assessment processes took so long that, by the time the project was finally approved, the world had moved on and the economics were no longer viable.

Since then our Prime Minister and government in Ottawa has streamlined the environmental assessment and National Energy Board processes on major energy projects.  We support the establishment of a Major Projects Management Office – to facilitate the coordination and cut through the red tape of major projects. This is the right approach.  This is the kind of thinking we have to encourage. We want balanced development that protects our land and environment.

Our success in building new infrastructure to get our energy wealth to tidewater has been a difficult process.  We have been talking about this for years, and we, in Canada need new infrastructure that will allow us to export our energy to overseas markets.

We cannot be a gateway to anyone without being an outport.

If there continues to be no meaningful progress on Asia/Pacific gateway infrastructure on the Pacific Coast, we will fully explore an Arctic Gateway route through the Beaufort Sea as an alternative.

I had already mentioned the Mackenzie Valley Natural Gas pipeline project.  This was originally conceived as a way to get Northern resources to southern markets and distribution networks.  We still support that pipeline. The increasingly navigable waters off our Northern coasts mean that now, a Northern or Beaufort gateway is technically feasible.

Alberta released a report entitled “An Arctic Energy Gateway for Alberta”.  The report concludes that it is technically feasible to export petroleum through an Arctic route.  If we cannot get our resources out through the Pacific coast, then we can get them out through Tuktoyuktuk.  From there we can access markets in Asia, Europe and the east coasts of Canada and the USA.

If we do this, this will provide significant opportunities in construction jobs, geological research, terminal operating and port management jobs for our territory. That is something that interests me very much. We will be working very hard to determine the next steps, that an Arctic Gateway is also economically feasible.

We are a small territory, but we have ambitions, and we know how to do big projects in a manner that respects communities, respects people, and brings people together.

For the future we all see a very different Northwest Territories.  One that has significant hydroelectric capacity, one that has a completed Mackenzie Valley Highway – Diefenbaker’s “Road to Riches” – and one that will have world class development of our significant oil and gas potential.  The Northwest Territories will become the world leader in diamond production by value, as well as mining production.

The Northwest Territories will then have taken its rightful place in the Confederation of Canada.

Moreover, we will have achieved all of this while still preserving the values that allowed us to thrive until now:  respect, partnership, hard work, and consensus.

We have already taken huge steps forward.  This past April, a new Devolution agreement came into effect between the Northwest Territories, the federal government and our Aboriginal government partners.  In short, this agreement finally gives our government control over the resource royalties that other provinces and states take for granted.  We have become masters of our own economic development, and we have the ability to make decisions that further our economic and social interests.  We have become “Masters in our Own House.”

I cannot understate the importance of the significance of Devolution to the Northwest Territories.  We are quite literally at the dawn of a new era that will see our economy, our peoples, and our land flourish.

But this is just the beginning.  I would like to leave you with the following thought.  As we all – collectively – work to face the new challenges of the Twenty-first Century – from infrastructure challenges of remote regions to changing trade trends in Asia to new geostrategic dynamics and threats in the Arctic – we, the Northwest Territories, will be up to the task. I know all of you are as well.

Together, we will continue to thrive, and our people will continue to prosper.

Thank you.