Thank you, Mr. Speaker and good afternoon. Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify some points that happened last week during Session, specifically question period. Thus, my statement is about misinformation. First of all, Mr. Speaker, I did not say that I wanted to tax charitable bingos or bring VLTs into the Northwest Territories, as quoted by certain members of the media.
For the record, I will quote from the unedited Hansard of Thursday, January 23 in response to my questions to the Honourable Minister Todd about other revenue-generating possibilities and ideas for the Northwest Territories. I quote from page 300 of the unedited Hansard: "We should not tax lotteries or any other monies coming in to help charitable organizations but scratch and win cards, and those types of things, should and can be looked at." That is what I said, Mr. Speaker. The point of my questioning, Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the people of the Northwest Territories, was to demonstrate the need for this government to look at other revenue-generating ideas. I suggest that those people interested should review the Hansard.
As for the VLTs, I said that they are another form of revenue-generation. I did not say I was in favour of them. I asked Mr. Todd if he had looked at that possibility.
The other area, Mr. Speaker, is the fuel problem. For the record, I am now satisfied that the fuel purchased on the 1996 sealift met GNWT standards as demonstrated by the information provided to me by the Minister of POL, Mr. Arlooktoo, on Friday. My line of questioning was on the purchase of fuel at rural markets that was below standard and bought on the cheap. This was the information that was provided to me and it would seem that it was not entirely accurate.
Collaterally to this, the fuel supplier in Iqaluit, Nuksuk Corporation, were not at fault and they have been doing an excellent job. It is unfortunate, however, that it took four days of questioning to resolve that matter. I would like to thank Minister Arlooktoo and Minister Dent for their cooperation and the extra work put in by their staff to clarify the issue for me, for the record, Mr. Speaker.