Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Minister is correct; I've been in a couple of units where they have these nice units, the seniors have them. I would like to see them in all the seniors' homes that they have high costs of diesel in the Northwest Territories. Especially those ones, they need to have them in the seniors' homes, those units you have. They cost so much but I think for the seniors you have to, again I would state that, to look after them and put the units in there.
For people like my age or younger and people who are able to do things in life, I think we need to seriously look at creating self-reliance and creating a lifestyle. That means you can get woodstoves or pellet stoves into the house. Surely, my God, we could get up and cut wood if we have to. It's a crying shame that we allow these people my age to sit there and depend on government to give us fuel. We are creating more dependency than ever in this day and age. In this day and age we need to create responsible, healthy young people in our region, in our communities. Mr. Minister, all the other departments have this type of response...It's part of our overall vision for the North. We have to get the woodstoves into the houses, get them to go out in the bush. There's lots to learn on the land. Right now, I think we're doing them a disservice.
Mr. Minister, I know you have goodness in your heart, you work for the people. The elders, surely we can take care of them, they worked hard all their lives to take care of us. I know that from stories I've heard. It's our turn now to take care of the elders. We have to do that for them, but we also have to learn how to be as independent and self-reliant as they were. I know it's a tough job. We have created a theme of dependency into the houses. It makes a lot of sense to have woodstoves or pellet stoves.
I'm passionate about this because it's going to get really hard for us in the future. I don't think the price of fuel is going to go down. I think the price of fuel is going to go higher and higher when you create that lifestyle. It's for all northern people. There are some really good people in
the North and I think that somehow we have some incentive programs or start the management or design. There should be a cap; there should be a percentage of the Northwest Territories that in all our public units there should be 25 percent or 30 percent that have woodstoves.
The ones that really need the help, we have programs for them. Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the Minister in that sense, I guess the trick question is how do we support our overall goals of government, being self-reliant, having healthy lifestyles and healthy choices, and creating a life of well-being? I think one way is by doing the work. One way is by going out and having some physical activity to clear your mind, work your body, and start thinking about life in the bush, or life in the community. I'm thinking about that, Mr. Chairman, in terms of infrastructure. We have to give that kind of thought to create self-reliance. I know what he's saying. I do support the Minister in this initiative but coming down from a small community, these small communities, we really need help because the cost of living is going quite high and we really need to be strong in our decisions to help our young people. Otherwise, we're going to be here next year again talking about the same issue.
I want to say that in terms of...If the Minister would at least consider and look at ways that we could help this issue in terms of getting woodstoves into homes, or wood pellets, and if he would consider reviewing different programs that would support it, a pilot project. I think that it may work for some communities. Not all communities may agree with us, but I think my region, at least one or two communities would support it. Maybe other communities, the Tlicho or Beaufort-Delta, or even Yellowknife; I'm not too sure. I want to leave it at that, Mr. Chairman. I've taken enough time.