Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would appreciate this opportunity to actually ask a question that my brain remembered shortly after I sat down.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment this question. I’d like to say that I appreciate that there are funding implications to raising the minimum wage. I do want to say, though, that I think there are likely very few people who are currently working at minimum wage in our territory. If it was a large percentage, I’d be very surprised. People simply can’t survive on that amount of money.

My guess is that even an increase of $1.75 per hour to the minimum wage could relatively easily be funded by finding efficiencies and savings within the department. I love to use this example: doing reports electronically instead of printing them and distributing them. It’s a good example and one I’m fond of.

So to the Minister: will he attempt to do the necessary analysis to see what it would cost to increase the minimum wage to, say, $10 an hour before we meet to review business plans in November?