Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. (Translation) I'm going to be talking in my native language. There is a proposal now to have an election this spring, on June 12th. That is okay, however, I don't agree with it. So for that reason I am not going to be voting in favour of this.

When I visited the communities I told people that the election will be this fall. By that date it would be exactly four years we've been here, and I had already told them that and now they are saying something different. I wanted to raise this because I don't agree with it. The reason I am saying this is because when we are elected, we are elected for four years and we sit here on behalf of all the people who voted for us. The Ministers and the MLAs are elected for four years.

We have heard the budget report from the federal government and our funding is cut dramatically, by at least $58 million. They informed us that they are not giving us the usual amount. The message we recevied is very serious. A great deal of work has been done to priorize the funding cuts and where and how this money will be spent. Our Finance Minister is familiar with people from Ottawa and has worked well with them. Our leader, Nellie, also works well with the Prime Minister, and some Ministers here know the Ministers from Ottawa. We have received a very important message about our budget and if we have to change things because of this, I think the Ministers here who are familiar with the federal Ministers should be the ones to work on our budget. If we have a spring election and we get new elected Members in here and new elected Ministers put in place, it will be like starting all over. They won't be familiar with the Ministers from Ottawa.

Now we are talking about working towards a new government, they call it the transition plan and they asked the government to develop legislation for us. They told us that they would do this for us, but are able to get on it only this summer. They are also working on a lot of other issues. Ottawa is working with all the different provinces. So for this reason if we hold an election before they work out a transition plan for a new government, and we get new elected Members working before this plan, I think things will get very difficult.

I really don't mind when the elections are held, however, I had already told my constituents that after four years an election will be held in the fall. For that reason, this motion before us saying to have an election this spring in June, I'm not going to be voting in favour of this. Thank you.