Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, have heard from my constituents over the summer months, especially in the area of power rate increases, the high cost of energy and the high fuel prices in our communities. More important is the cost of living in regard to sustaining individuals in these high cost communities. A lot of our communities lack programs and services. In some cases there is no service. We don’t have nurses; we don’t have police.

Mr. Speaker, also realize that we have to ensure that we take care of the infrastructure in the Northwest Territories. A lot has been said over the summer months about the condition of the Dempster Highway. We were promised in this House this spring that we were going to do everything we can to ensure that public safety is a factor, but again the roads have been in very poor condition this summer.

One of the biggest issues that is still out there is the cost of living for residents in our communities when it comes to income support, housing subsidy programs and the consolidation that took place. That issue is one of the most pressing in our

communities. To top it all off, the icing on the cake came when this government announced the tax initiatives that will again affect the cost of living of the residents of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t support all these initiatives. The only one I support is something that was here in the 13th Assembly. I think that if we had taken

care of it then, we probably would have seen some revenues from the resource industry by way of a resource tax. Again, here I state that I do support that initiative, but the rest of them can go.

I think it’s important that we ensure that the residents of the Northwest Territories, who should be the benefactors of these resource developments, see that the resources and the revenues stay in the North. If anyone wants to take out the resources, there’s a penalty to pay. We are not going to get devolution. We haven’t seen it in the last 20-odd years. I think that if we wanted to receive something from those developments today, we should have done the resource tax. Again, Mr. Speaker, do not tax the residents of Northwest Territories.