Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will speak very briefly to this, but I first of all want to say that the one thing the public expects from us on this bill and other bills is to ensure that the information we have is accurate. I do accept Ms. Lee's apology for having given the media some inaccurate information, which may have misled or coloured people's thinking on this issue. I do take a bit of exception though to the statement that was made today about this being surplus public money. This is not all public money. There was some public money in it. I believe somewhere in the neighbourhood of a third of what is there now is public money. I do not have an exact figure.

Some people have said that there were no contributions by Members in past Legislative Assemblies. I am told by Members that there were contributions. A lot of the money that is in here is money that has been earned through investments in the pension plan.

There is a question, who does that money belong to? Who does any money in any pension plan belong to? Does it belong to the pension plan of those people who paid into it or does it belong to government? I guess the question I put out to other Members to consider is when does a government dip into pension plans? Is it appropriate for a government to dip into pension plans? For example, the Ontario Teachers Federation has a huge surplus in their pension plan. They are public servants, and there are other public pension plans that all have some public contribution in them. Should the Ontario government dip into the Ontario teachers' pension plan? I do not know. It is a serious philosophical question. Whether it is an MLA's pension plan, whether it is a teacher's pension plan or a union worker's pension plan, whose ever it may be, when do we step into a pension plan and begin to dip out the money?

I do not think we should view ourselves in our role here in any particular way. I do not feel that I am abusing my authority. I do not believe that is what I came here for. I did not believe it when I ran for election. I do not believe it now. I will not abuse my authority, but at the same time, I want to ensure that all people in the Northwest Territories are treated fairly. I do not like the suggestion that somehow we have been abusing our authority. I for one have not done that at all and I will not do that.

Mr. Speaker, on this whole issue, really the fundamental question in my mind is if we begin to dip into pension plans as a government, where does that stop? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.