Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to congratulate you on your election as Speaker. Mr. Chairman, at the present time, I would have a great deal of difficulty supporting the addition of a ninth seat to Cabinet. I know I've read the arguments about the workload and about the travel and so on, but my constituents say to me you're talking about spending more money on government when you've told us about the potential deficit and are telling us that we might have to look at cutting programs. A lot of them say we run our own businesses and never, when times get tough, do we add a new manager. That's the wrong time to be adding somebody to the management team.

I think that there is, perhaps, some merit to coming back and looking at this later, but at the present time I would have a great deal of difficulty supporting the addition of a ninth seat to Cabinet. If we are going to do it, it certainly has to happen within the current budget. But again, most of my constituents say if you can really add a ninth Cabinet seat within the current budget, you should be cutting the budget. You should be setting the example by cutting expenses.

I think, too, we have to take a look at the size of our jurisdiction. With 65,000 people, I know that the administration of the jurisdiction is complicated by the size and the way the population is spread around the Territory, but 65,000 people shouldn't require a huge number of managers to run the system; especially not if the managers are working in consultation with the 24 directors who sit around this table and are really offering a consensus style of government.

I think that other jurisdictions have set examples in the last few years. As the economic times get tougher, they've downsized their Cabinets. I think we have to take a look at whether or not that might be possible with the system of government we have. I think it's a good idea that we give the new Premier the opportunity to assign the portfolios, and let's take a look at this, perhaps, in a little while. I think Mr. Ootes's idea that we revisit it after the Premier and Cabinet have had a chance to see whether or not they can do the job adequately is a good one. So, Mr. Chairman, I would agree with that suggestion that we shouldn't look at adding the seat today but that we could certainly take a look at it at a future time. Thank you.