Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, again, I would like to thank the Member and all of the Members for their comments regarding the initiative that is before them, and the increase of corporate taxes. I agree, taxes are never popular, and I didn't take this job with a goal that l would cause an increase in order to provide services to our NWT residents. But after looking at the scenario presented to us and trying to come up with a balance, we have had to wrestle with this, look at our options that we had available in trying to get something in the 2004-05 year. I have heard a lot of Members now talking about what we are going to do next, and I hope we still have your support when we do actually start looking at those reductions.
A lot of Members are calling for looking internally, and that is the exercise we are going to embark on after this. What we are doing here is just to secure where we are in providing the level of service we have available to residents to date. There is no real increase, and if you look at a lot of the departments' increases they are based on forced growth, whether it is an increase in providing the service through union agreements to pay wages to nurses and doctors, or teachers, or trades people, those that we have left in trades that is. So we are trying to come up with that balance of what we can do in trying to meet our own goals and providing a level of service that is not only expected, but to meet the requirements that we have put upon us.
It is difficult, and I am willing to go to the regions and Members' constituencies to go through this and explain the impacts, as well as where we are going as a government with these initiatives, but it is not going to get any easier. As the Member stated, right now we are dealing with the strains on our programs and services, and the philosophy of the 15th Assembly is different than that of the 14th Assembly in trying to meet our goals as a government and still provide services to our residents. We have changed our philosophy, and we are going to go about that in trying to come up with an appropriate balance, and not all Members will agree with the scenarios that will come out. Again, at the end of the day we are going to have to meet those targets that we set for ourselves. Thank you.