Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier on in my Member's statement I attributed a statement, about the cost of recycling to the Minister. In fact, it wasn't the Minister that made the statements about costs of communities having to fly things in and out. It was Mr. Handley, the deputy minister, who made that statement, and I apologize to the Minister for implicating him with that comment. However, the Minister did say and I quote, "In terms of beverage containers, I have indicated that they may be unsightly but not hazardous." While that's true, the figure that I quoted of some 70,000 in my Member's statement was far too low. The 70,000 was what that one person alone had collected. I think we're dealing in the millions of containers, aluminum cans.
I would like to ask the Minister why are we not charging a fee, such as five cents per beverage container, at the retail level, and applying the deposit fee to a sound recycling program that will make some positive improvements on this issue.