Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The suggestion that we create an office of a Commissioner for this bill came from the Standing Committee on Legislation, but I don't recall that they said it should be full time. The legislation itself simply says we will create such an office and that the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories will appoint a Commissioner for the purpose of this act. So we can take the suggestion that we should find a way to severely or moderately cut the set-up costs and the ongoing O and M costs for this bill.
But Members have to realize that a lot of the costs are going to be driven by public demand, so we can do what we can to make sure that at least the bureaucracy, which would be about $300,000 to $400,000 a year -- the cost of setting up a Commissioner full time with support staff and all would be about $300,000 to $400,000 a year -- could be cut a little. With everything else, it would be difficult to give any assurance beyond that.
So it is true; when you vote for the bill, you vote for something that is politically necessary for some of us. It is a commitment that this government made, carried over from the last Legislature. It was done in a time when we felt confident that we could handle the financial situation of this government. It may be a consideration here, but I guess I am just making the point that we are still committed to this bill.
We have prepared the cost implications for Members so you walk into it with at least full knowledge of what we think the implications of this bill are. People were booed for raising the implicated costs during the last Legislative Assembly, and now we are all looking at it again. It is a different reality, for sure. For some, as Mr. Arvaluk and Mr. Patterson point out, it's a luxury. People can struggle through life without it, but it is more difficult to try to do it without jobs, without housing.
These are issues you have to grapple with yourself. We simply made the commitment to follow through on this and give you the cost implications. We can give you assurances that we can try to diminish the cost implications but not by a great deal.