Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank all the Members for their constructive comments with respect to the motion. I just want to reiterate what some of the Members have said, that this motion is not to derail the program, or put up barriers to seeing the program succeed in a lot of the centres, but, basically, it just speaks of fairness, and that's all this motion is dealing with. It is just to make sure that there's fairness in the smaller centres. For the 20 percent of the population that aren't going to be able to recover any refund from the beverage containers that they use, and just from what the Minister was telling us -- 25 million containers every year -- that's 20 percent of those that are not going to see any refund. We're talking five million containers that are going to be cash in the trash for all of these small communities. That's about $50,000 and more, that these smaller communities will be throwing away every year if we don't have an option for them to get the refund that they deserve.
I know that there are a lot of practical approaches that the government could look at to accommodate the communities that don't have depots. They're talking about giving them to the ITI officers; maybe we could just get people to drop them off at the LHOs. You know, pay your rent with your trash. There are all kinds of options that the government could look at accommodating in the smaller centres. This motion is just allowing, maybe, these smaller centres a little leeway, to give them an extension, maybe January 1, to get the other 12 communities on board with setting up local depots. I don't think it's a big thing. I think with a little enthusiasm, and a little bit of pushing from their local MLAs after this session breaks, maybe these communities, in the next month, or two months, come January 1, 2006, every community will have a depot. I just think these smaller centres should be put on hold until the Regular Members, and the MLAs, can go back to their respective centres and actually start promoting this cash for trash. I think with that, then we can come back to the House in March and all be happy, and say hey, every community in the NWT has a depot or some form of making sure that people get the refunds that they are entitled to, and are not having their refunds all go to the landfill sites.
With that, again, I surely hope that the government can come back with some constructive alternatives for these communities to address this issue. I encourage all the MLAs to go back to their respective centres, and the communities that they represent, and encourage the local organizations, schools, NGOs, and entrepreneurs, to take this program very seriously, and incorporate it fully into their community infrastructure and plans.
With that, I thank everybody again, Mr. Speaker, and I hope we can see some fruition to this whole program in the next few months. Thank you.
---Applause