Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the important issue of the ever rising cost of carbon. Mr. Speaker, the Trudeau Government in Ottawa has made its position on a carbon tax clear. It recently announced its plans to bring in federal carbon taxation. It intends to bring provinces and territories in line with that plan if they don't develop their own.

The question is: will we in the Northwest Territories be prepared with a plan that suits our unique environment, our economy, and most importantly our cost-of-living? Or will we end up, as has happened before, being told what to do and losing our choice in the matter? Mr. Speaker, our Territory needs its own plan for how we use and reduce fossil fuels. We need a plan for climate change. Our population is small, but we have to do our global part. We have to take a serious role in the climate change discussion because our people, our territory, and the entire circumpolar region are being hit the hardest by the effects of climate change.

That's why we need a plan that's designed here in the North. We have to work hard and develop a real plan. We have to get our communities on renewable energy and seriously reduce our reliance on fossil fuel. We have to continue to engage and reward private sector initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, we need to lead. We need to take the initiative before the initiative is assumed by the federal government. We need to work with our territorial counterparts to make a plan to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. We need to do accurate and thorough research to establish the costs and viability of such a plan, Mr. Speaker. We need to determine how a carbon tax will affect the options we consider, and we need to figure out how all these things will affect our overall strategy on the impacts of climate change and, most importantly, on our standards of living.

Mr. Speaker, it's a big file and it's not going away. We need to take the initiative before it's taken away from us or we'll no longer have a choice. At the appropriate time I'll have questions for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.