Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank my four colleagues who brought this motion forward and have done a lot of work in this area, and I think are certainly very passionate about the establishment of a committee that will address some of the rural community issues and affairs. I think with good reason. I certainly would not sit here today and try to deny that there are inequities between the predominately larger tax-based communities and the smaller non-tax-based communities. I think that is a fact of life that you would see anywhere across this country. I think the Northwest Territories is no different in that respect.

I also think that further compounding the problem here is the fact that when you analyze some of these services and some of the facilities in the larger centres, what people may not initially realize and grasp is that a lot of these are paid for and have been paid for with municipal tax revenues. Clearly the smallest economies and smallest communities cannot raise their own tax revenues. There simply is not the critical mass to be able to generate any kind of meaningful revenue through municipal taxation and I understand that, but I think that it has to be said that much of the facilities are a direct result of the generation of municipal tax revenues.

I do have some concerns about the way that this committee has been structured, in that it appears to have a fixed four-Member membership and these four Members represent rural communities. I think, structured like this, it may give the perception that there would somehow be some have and some have-not rural communities.

It is no secret that much of what communities strive to do is lobby the government. All of our committees have that as their mandate and try to influence how funding is allocated, how programming is developed and I think that in fairness to other Members in this House who do represent constituencies that do have small rural communities, for instance the Premier, Minister Steen, Minister Antoine, Minister Handley as well representing Detah, I think in fairness to their constituents, we would have to allow for them to have representation in a committee of this nature.

I think what makes more sense is to structure some sort of a committee that would recommend to this Assembly how our internal structures and how our government structures are set up might better reflect rural issues, because I really do believe there is a case to be made here and this is something that I would support. I think it will have to be seen to be fair in that regard. I am hoping that if this does not pass here today that the four Members who have done this work to date will not be disheartened, but will work with their other colleagues, and indeed, the entire membership of this House, to try to see how we might reflect these rural priorities and see what kind of work we can do going forward. Thank you.