Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My comments are specifically related to the $1.127 million increase to the power subsidy program. It concerns me greatly, Mr. Chairman, that the territorial power support program has a significant increase on an annual basis. It comes back to the very point I want to make, and unfortunately there's nowhere in the budget process that we can address this to the NWT Power Corporation. I think it requires us to revisit some of the many contributing factors as this power subsidy program increases at an alarming rate. One of the issues that was raised to me in the last several weeks was the fact that the low end of 700 kilowatt hours for residential use is not effective in the Northwest Territories during the cold winter months. This is proven in Inuvik where some of the power bills have increased over 100 percent to some of the consumers. I think one of the areas we want to highlight is not so much in the overall parts of the increase, but as a matter of principle of how we should look at more sustainable environmentally-friendly power sources. One of the questions raised to me by one of the local contract groups in Inuvik was if they had the ability to influence a policy change, where they would be able to sell back private power generation into the main grid to see if they could help alleviate some of those cost factors.

So I will conclude that statement by asking, through yourself, Mr. Chair, to the Minister, if there was further consideration given to the proposed initiative. Thank you.