Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to make some suggestions to the Minister of Transportation that may solve the anticipated financial hardship that will be foisted upon northerners by the implementation of the proposed NAV Canada fee schedule, if it is enacted. Mr. Speaker, my honourable colleague from Yellowknife North has quite rightly raised the point that NAV Canada stands to make enormous profits on the opening of circumpolar routes that overfly previously restricted Russian airspace. When you consider that the airliners will spend a considerable amount, if not the majority, of their time in the NWT airspace, it is only fair that this financial windfall be used to subsidize the cost of air travel in the north.

Mr. Speaker, it is Friday and I am going to have some fun with some of the facts and figures to make my point. So what do we do, Mr. Speaker? How do we get NAV Canada and the federal Minister of Transportation to see the validity of our points? I believe the GNWT have legal ownership on the ground that the magnetic north originates from. I would like to suggest that we as a government charge NAV Canada a fee for the use of the magnetic north signal. In fact, we could charge the whole aviation world a fee for the use of that signal.

What I propose, Mr. Speaker, is that we apply to the courts for the right to charge a fee for the use of the magnetic north signal emanating from the Northwest Territories. We could block out the signal to those who would not subscribe to the program, just like the cable TV operators do. I would like to suggest that Minister Antoine when he is putting this regime in place that he consider retroactivity, for say the past ten years. I would like to make it perfectly clear, Mr. Speaker, that Santa Claus would be exempt from any of these fees. I say this as a demonstration of my good will as opposed to what NAV Canada has shown the north.

I was pleased to hear, Mr. Speaker, that NAV Canada, in their benevolence, will not be charging fees to air ambulances or fire fighting planes. What an amazing concession. I had this vision in my head of the president of NAV Canada playing a fiddle and dancing while the Western Territories forests burn because somebody in RWED forgot to pay the aviation fees. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.