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Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 3, 2008

OTTAWA - Economic development initiatives that the Conservatives have proposed for the North will be lost if the Conservative government is overthrown, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq warned Monday.

Dennis Bevington, Western Arctic MP: Coalition would benefit the North. - NNSL file photos Leona Aglukkaq, minister of Health: Northern initiatives are at stake if government falls.

But Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington said a proposed federal coalition between his NDP party and the Liberals will deliver an economic stimulus package to benefit all of Canada.

The Liberals and NDP, with support from the Bloc Quebecois, hope to topple the Harper-led government Monday when they vote on their ability to govern.

Aglukkaq said the current Conservative government was the first to develop a Northern strategy and that initiatives, such as the pipeline, establishing a Northern economic development agency, preserving Arctic sovereignty and moving toward greater devolution of government will be forsaken if the government is defeated.

"All that is at risk with the change," she said. "There’s huge initiatives at stake in the North.

“They’re not concerned about the economy whatsoever. If that was the case, their actions have made it worse in my mind,” said Aglukkaq. “It’s created complete uncertainty.”

However, Bevington replied the Conservatives had the opportunity to gain support from one of the opposition parties but failed to do so when they made no immediate plans to boost an ailing economy.

The policy accord between the Liberals and NDP outlines a two-year economic stimulus package focused on accelerating existing infrastructure funding, housing construction and retrofitting and investing in key industries like auto plants, manufacturing and forestry. Bevington said the package the coalition is putting forth will benefit the North in a big way.

"Infrastructure funding creates opportunity for investment in the North which may help projects like the pipeline," Bevington said. "When they mentioned the pipeline in their throne speech I wanted to know what incentives they were going to put in place for the North. I felt the most appropriate incentives for development of oil and gas in the North was infrastructure and community development.

"We have seen layoffs in key industries like mining and aviation. The economy is in trouble and we're looking at an immediate response to this. Aglukkaq said the opposition parties are ignoring voter wishes to have a Conservative government. She also noted that the throne speech has already passed, giving the government support for its mandate.

"I think it’s very clear based on the election what the wishes of Canada were," she said.

"Canada did not vote on a coalition mandate.

"This is the kind of stuff you see in a third-world country, not in Canada."

Bevington suggested this is a historic time in Canadian politics with the possibility of the first coalition government in 90 years.

"We've had three minority parliaments in a row and five parties that have achieved substantial voter support in the last three elections," he said. "Our politics have to change. We need to have stability in Parliament and if we're going to have a large number of political parties we need to have things like coalitions in place. It's a historic event and it's way overdue."