We need to put it in some context. The Department of Education, while we all acknowledge we could put more money into it, it is no different from the Department of Economic Development. We all acknowledge we would like to put more money into it. It is no different from the Department

of Health, we all acknowledge we need to put more money into it. The threshold is, the overall fiscal framework that we have in this government is, we have x-amount of dollars to spend. I am not making those numbers up. Everybody has access to that. These are the numbers we get from the benevolence of the federal government and from the taxpayers of the Northwest Territories that is the threshold.

What we do is work it out in partnership with yourselves and the Cabinet Ministers as to what levels of financing each envelope and each department gets. There is $303 million currently being spent on education. This is a significant amount of our overall budget. I am not suggesting that it is enough. There is never enough money in politics, but there are some fiscal realities that we all have to look toward. The threshold is, and the way we have to approach this, you cannot isolate education out and say, that has a greater priority than health care, if you are prepared to say that, let me hear that. You cannot isolate education and say it has a greater priority than job creation. They all have priorities.

We all have to reach reasonable compromises. The budgets we develop should not be developed because of minority groups out there lobbying for one point of view, which I have no problem with. I have a responsibility as the Finance Minister, as Cabinet colleagues and you do, to look at the overall impact the budget has on the territorial populace, and to treat it in a fair and reasonable way and to reach the compromises that are necessary to provide the level and standards of service that our constituencies come to expect.

You cannot look at increasing the budget in education in isolation of the other components that make up the services that we provide to territorial residents. This is the point I was trying to make. Thank you.