Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the issue of taxation and how it's calculated in comparison to other jurisdictions and then look at the poverty line, as the Member mentioned, those are two different areas. But for the taxation side when we do look at it and we look at the average taxation per individual in the Northwest Territories, our incomes do look higher. That's because of the cost of living in the Northwest Territories. We realize that as the Government of the Northwest Territories, but that does have an effect, for example, when the federal government establishes programs or benefits that are eligible for Canadians, they established their cut-off lines of when people are eligible or are ineligible for some of those rebates. That can have an effect in the Northwest Territories because again on the front of it, it looks like we do have higher incomes. Our argument to that is we have a higher cost of living as well.

When you look at it and do the comparisons, percentage-wise, we were deemed in the past, through the previous formula arrangement, to not be paying enough taxes as citizens in the NWT. We took a hit on that under the tax effort adjustment factor. There is work going on now with a new formula that is still we are working on the details of how that portion would be calculated. We know there will be a continued comparison to other jurisdictions in Canada, but at the same time we've worked through the Department of Finance to have it recognized that there was an offset for the higher cost of living in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.