Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak in support of this motion. Mr. Speaker, I realize that as the Member for Nahendeh mentioned earlier that the Cabinet Ministers each made a statement on the energy issue last week, or the first week that the session opened. It was a mini-energy theme day for the Cabinet, but I don't believe that Members on this side, or the public out there, feel that was sufficient. The government focused on conservation, but there have not really been very specific ways in addressing the people's concerns about rising fuel costs and cost of living.

Mr. Speaker, the concern about the cost of living isn't just a community issue. I was handed a fuel bill by two homeowners in Yellowknife showing me that since their last bill, the cost of their fuel is at least $200 or $300 more. I mean, this is something that we're going to be dealing with in upcoming months, unless, of course, the world prices somehow drop in a drastic way and that drop translates into any reduction in cost of fuel from where it is now.

Mr. Speaker, I don't understand the concerns about the fact that this work is being carried out by the Accountability and Oversight committee. That is the committee that just undertook pre-budget public hearings, and it was received with open arms in every community we visited. In that exercise, nobody ever suggested that we should go to any more than the nine that were decided. We were only able to go to nine. But we can only do what we can. Perhaps in this hearing process for this bill we will choose communities that are not part of that nine. Mr. Speaker, to suggest that because you're not going everywhere that you're not being accountable, doesn't make sense at all. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly like what Mr. Dent said. If I have to help that day care, I have to help every day care. I was thinking that was like a heart surgeon saying I can't give you heart surgery on this because I'd have to give it to everybody. Well I'm telling you, you don't have to do it that way. I'm telling you if you could go to Yellowknife, you don't even have to do Yellowknife. You could just go to north, south, I mean, we do it constantly. No one would ever suggest that the Minister can't move on a file unless he goes everywhere. I fail to see the logic of the Premier saying we're not being accountable by not going to all of them.

To suggest that this motion is hypocritical in some way because we're going to go to the public and talking about this number one issue, I know there are lots of issues that are being discussed in this House, but outside the energy costs and rising cost of living as the number one issue, and we have not demonstrated in this House, during this session, that we have really done anything to present to the public what the government is about to do.

The timing of this, Mr. Speaker, was a big issue of debate in drafting this motion. There is urgency to this debate. We can't wait until the House sits in February...