Yellowknife (Mar 14/03) - The NWT premier says there will be a Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline built, but not without some revenue flowing north as the gas goes south.

Premier Stephen Kakfwi says that while NWT has "the hottest economy in the country," in the next fiscal year, the GNWT is projecting a more than $100 million deficit. - NNSL file photo

At the Canadian Energy Research Institute's Calgary Energy Show 2003, held last week, Stephen Kakwfi said he will use the pipeline to lever the federal government to turn over resource revenue to the NWT.

"Today, my message is simple and direct -- the Mackenzie Valley pipeline is going to be built and it is going to be done right," Kakfwi said.

The premier went on to describe the NWT as "the hottest economy in the country," boasting the highest employment rates, disposable incomes and retail sales in Canada, but, he added, that in the next fiscal year, the GNWT is projecting a more than $100 million deficit.

"Ironically, the Northwest Territories is currently going broke promoting and supporting resource development, over which it has no jurisdiction and from which it receives no resource revenues," Kakfwi said.

"There is something very wrong with this picture."

"Our territorial highway system and municipal infrastructure in communities like Inuvik cannot keep pace with the impacts of development."

Today Kakfwi will travel to Whitehorse to sign a memorandum of understanding with Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie detailing how the Yukon and NWT can jointly benefit from future projects.

"This includes agreeing that the gas resources of the Peel Plateau and Eagle Plains in the north Yukon are best served by a lateral connection to the Mackenzie Valley pipeline," Kakfwi said.

The evolution of devolution

NWT Senator Nick Sibbeston is in Inuvik this week touring the Delta as part of his initiative "to become a better senator." When Sibbeston was government leader, the devolution of powers were still in their infancy. Resource revenue sharing was not yet discussed, but he says that reality could still be many years away.

"Certainly all the development that's going on in the North would supply the NWT government enough tax revenue that they could become self-sufficient," Sibbeston said. "It's obviously going to take a number of years for that to happen."

"I suspect the pipeline will be built before that whole process is finished."

He said the evolution of a territorial government to a provincially powered government is not something that happens overnight.

"Alberta became a province in 1905 and it wasn't until 1930 that they eventually got control of their resources," he said.

The Yukon signed their devolution agreement with DIAND last year.

"The Yukon is politically more advanced than the NWT," he said. "They have had a government since the 1800s."

In a report by Purvin and Gertz that was commissioned by the GNWT, they estimate the pipeline's economic spinoffs could add as much as $49 billion to the NWT gross domestic product (GDP) and $77 billion to Canada's GDP.

About $8.2 billion would go to the wages and salaries of people employed from pipeline development and 53,428 person years of employment in the NWT could be created.