Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to also speak briefly in favour of the motion. There's no question that the high cost of power and the money that the people have to pay for use of power has been, and always is, the number one issue when we visit communities in regards to how it affects cost of living. I do like the multi-pronged approach to this motion. It is calling for a review in order that we could improve our power delivery system, I guess, and the rates of it for all the communities.

Mr. Speaker, I must say I don't necessarily agree with increasing power subsidy if it means that it encourages over usage or it does not allow us to have periodic checks on how we could do better in terms of how we use power, but I think this motion tries to address reducing consumption as well as figuring out how to help residents and small businesses where it's possible. Mr. Speaker, I think it goes without saying how important it is for us to really focus on reducing consumption not only because of the greenhouse gas and other negative effects it has on the environment, but we need to be reminded that energy is such a precious resource. It costs a lot of money for us to make energy in the North, especially in smaller communities, and I think it's high time that we review this.

Mr. Speaker, I know in my own house that we sort of have a little competition if every month we could use less power than the month before. For myself, I'd be really interested in having a real-time, in-home, smart metering that will tell you every day what you're using and what power you're using and where that comes from. I would really like to see the government figure out a way to implement this. I think it would be very useful for every household and business in the North. I think that this would also require an energy audit on most of the houses, in all houses. I think out of this has to come a revamping and increasing resources to Arctic Energy Alliance's Home Audit Program because I think we'll be very surprised at how much energy that we don't need to use and we're using in our houses to light it up and fuel it and to every window vent that's not sealed properly or the doors that are not closing properly we're using power a lot. We live in a very harsh

environment. There's power use that we cannot avoid, but I'm sure that there's no one here that doubts that we could do so much more.

Also out of this has to come a very strong public awareness program about the fact that power is such a precious and valuable resource, as valuable as the air we breathe and water we have to have. I think that has to be part of the public awareness campaign.

So I would just like to close by saying that I support this motion and I would like to ask the government to take this as a call for action to review where we are at and to figure out all ways by which we could improve the way we charge for power, how we produce power, how we use power and how we could all work on reducing consumption of power. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause