Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Minister. The issue I have here goes back to the federal government in terms of their revenue resource sharing, the money they take out of the Northwest Territories. It seems that we, as residents of the Northwest Territories, always pay for it. We know that doing business in the North, the cost is extremely high in isolated communities such as my region. Even to attract good workers, you have to do extra initiatives to hold positions of workers in our communities. Also the programs that are dear to people's hearts are sometimes being called into question because of the amount of dollars it costs to do business in our communities. They get quite upset when we see some of the programs that have been cut and they question the government and myself as MLA, asking this government to look at some programs and consider saving them. The one question they have asked me often is the amount of bureaucrats we have with this government. We cut back and look at them again to see where some of those dollars can be pumped into the regions here. The one support I have and I commend the Minister on is the payroll, the fly-in/fly-out. That's one of the things they...(inaudible)...when I say this is something this government will look at because they think it's about time they pay for doing business in the Northwest Territories. We are going to stay here, Mr. Chairman. We pay the consequences. Our workers and the companies that come and do business in the Northwest Territories are going to be here for a couple of years and then they leave.

An example is the pipeline. We are going to have some major work done down the valley. People are going to be using our resources to do the work here. So that's something that I know in my region they support. Also the income tax increase for the rich. As my honourable colleague, Mr. Ramsay, said, the high income earners are supporting the low income people due to the high cost of living in the small communities. At the end of the day, we look at this and all the discussion on this complex issue of finance formulas with the federal government and with ourselves with income tax. The people want to know if they are increasing their quality of living in the communities. We really want to know they are getting a good deal from this government to increase the cost of living. That's what they look at at the end of the day. They can breeze through the Members' presentations, but at the end of the day when they go home, they say are we going to have good services and is our cost of living is going to be looked after. What happens to people who come to our regions, work for two weeks and fly out? Are they paying their dues? This is the Northwest Territories.

We have rich resources here. My question to the Minister, Mr. Chairman, is what type of strategy in terms of working with the federal government and showing that these dollars stay here and they take a lot of dollars out of here, and we are paying for it? I think we are more than a territory. I think we can come up with some creative solutions. I knew when we were coming to this election, if I was successful in getting in as MLA, we would come to a debt wall and the high cost of living and the issues in front of us. How do we deal with it? I want to show the constituents back in the Sahtu that their quality of living is being taken care of and we can ensure that we are maintaining some of the programs. If anything is going to be cut, for goodness sakes don't cut the programs. Those are serving a lot of people.

I think there have been some tough challenges by the Minister to look at departments and positions. I don't envy you being in that position, Mr. Minister, but the people in the communities are the ones who I am more concerned with. That is my comment to the Minister.