You mentioned that you are sorry you did not consult and basically that you will never do it again. The thing is already done. Basically, 60-some percent of the people that were receiving the subsidy will not be receiving it. Basically, the other issue you are talking about is that you came up with an equitable amount. I do not think this amount is equitable. People have to sustain themselves. If you are talking about someone with $20,000 or $30,000 and, from your statement, it sounds like you were earmarking the people making $50,000 to $60,000 who are basically in private business or in government, I do not see it in here. It seems like you came to the bottom of the threshold and used that number as low as you could get it to to eliminate as many people as you can. If that was not your intention, maybe you should deal with the issue you are saying was the issue, which is people who are making large amounts of money and who can afford it.

For the people in my riding, it is basically survival of the fittest in the Mackenzie Delta with regards to if you have a job, good for you because the other 90 percent of the people do not. If you sew for a living, we will charge you for that too. If you were earmarking the wages of people at the higher bracket, why did you not go after those people instead of going after everybody and leaving the people who are so far down that they are probably going to have problems making it with what they have anyhow? In my riding, the people that were saving the fuel subsidy last year were still having to get three or four extra fills just to get through the winter because it was such a cold winter last year that they had to find additional money to try to get through. There are a lot of people out there that were depending on this to get them through this winter. Basically what you are saying now is, "Sorry, it is eliminated and maybe better luck next year." That does not help them out because they were planning to hopefully fit that bracket, but the way it is right now, it is so low that they will not be able to do it.

In regards to the idea of finding $200,000, we are going to be dealing with a separate supplementary appropriation. There are a few dollars that have been moving around there. We have just finished going through a circus here about people paving their streets and basically people moving projects; there was no problem there to find the money to do that stuff. There has to be money in the budget that we can do that with. If there is a will, there is a way.