Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to point out from my recollection of history on this particular program. This program started out about five years ago or so as a wood subsidy program for people that burned wood to help them out, over 60, that live in their homes. It was geared for people that did not live in major centres, was the initial intent, if my memory serves me correctly. There has been steady upward pressure on the program to expand it for fuel oil, for electricity, propane, and in increasing numbers. They started out with a universal program, where you had people making sixty, seventy, eighty thousand dollars a year, getting the fuel subsidy, because of the largesse of the government.

In that space of five years, it is not seen as a subsidy program anymore. It is seen as a necessity, an entitlement, and people do not want to give it up, and who can blame them. The intent, I think, has got a little skewed over the years. Now we are in a situation where we are trying to carve back areas. A program like this that was universal in nature, definitely needed changing. It made no sense to me to pay people that are government employees a fuel subsidy on top of what they may be making as a government employee, or employed in the private sector.

The question I have is, this thing was run through the social programs, it was highlighted, it was raised by the Minister, and went to everybody. Every mayor, every MLA was told it was coming. So now we are in a situation, we have people that are upset, and of course, when people get upset at MLAs, MLAs get concerned and sensitive. That is their job. As I sit around the table here, we want to keep this program.

So where are we going to get the money from? Are we going to take back a piece of road, are we going to carve up some bundles of fur? Are we going to carve back a few teachers, and increase the student-teacher ratio, community recreation quotas, where are we going to get the money from?

I think we have an obligation, if we are going to start doing this kind of shuffle. When we set the targets, we changed the Deficit Elimination Act. We are the ones, with the exception of Mr. O'Brien, who has been very consistent, and said we have a two-year plan to balance the budget. Where do we take the money from? Are we going to be doing this on a regular basis? Every time we get squeezed a bit, we are going to come back to the House, to either pillory the Cabinet for not giving them more money, or not saving this program? What are we going to do as an Assembly? How do we deal with this?

It is an issue, like Mr. Picco says, it is a motherhood and apple pie issue. So let us get past the high emotion, and let us look at the specifics. What are we going to do? We could sit here for the rest of the week, and keep singing the same song, but let us be constructive. If we do not want to cut, we have all these other initiatives. Well, then, where do we find the money? I am more than interested in looking at that, because I am interested to see what the options are, what the seniors have to say. Where do we go from here? I do not want to do the Minister's job, but I have an interest in the social programs on this issue. What are we going to do? By all means, give us some input. But give us something concrete. Thank you.