Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, maybe for the benefit of the communities, right now if we had one dollar for the whole Northwest Territories, 60 percent of it would be to support this government, the rest goes towards programs for the communities, such as education, social services, health.

We have run into a situation, Mr. Chairman, and I do not know who to blame, but I could point fingers. We ran into a deficit last year, and the result of the deficit was because expenditures were done just before an election, and as a result of the election. The point is, Mr. Chairman, in the Public Accounts Committee, one of the things that was mentioned was, that the public service does not have anything with regard to when they should stop expenditures. Even in their computers, computers are not designed to beep if you go beyond your expenditure.

There is not the control by a Comptroller General that enforces the Financial Administration Act. So, those are not things that you can blame on the aboriginal communities. I could also say a lot of nice things about the public service, but the point is we are not in the situation we are in because of aboriginal people. Someone has to take the blame, and that is why I say it is good to give praise when it is due, but my problem is that we would not be in the type of situation we are in, if people were doing their jobs, and that has been addressed time, and time, again even by the Auditor General.

The government is not doing anything to address the issue. Even at the last public council meeting, the same recommendations are still coming up. We do not have a system in place which would alert the finance people that they are over extending, so we are in a situation now, we are in deficit.

The other thing, too, is that if we are going to be saying that pay equity is good, and that, because of the court challenges under the Human Rights Act, we have to make some kind of adjustment for pay equity, the same thing should apply to benefits equity, too.

Whether you are with the Union of Northern Workers, the public servants, or the N.W.T.T.A., I think, if we are going to apply things evenly and fairly, then do it. I have problems with people in my constituency that are given different benefits than people that are working here in Yellowknife, and I use the example of vacation travel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.