Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate all the comments and suggestions that I have received over the last two days, especially in the areas of homecare, anti-poverty, and youth mental health and addictions. These are areas that are clearly in our mandate, and I would suggest that there is no disagreement with anybody on committee that these are areas that we have to invest in and make sure that we are doing more and better work moving forward in this Assembly. You know, to repeat myself, it is completely consistent with the mandate that we have accepted as the 19 Members.

Having said that, as we accepted our portfolios and moved forward with the work of government over the last 14 months, I have been pretty clear that we have some timelines that we put in place in order to do the meaningful work necessary to help quantify and express how to enhance areas like homecare and youth mental health. I believe, and I think everybody in this House believes, that we are going to have to make additional investment in this area. I am simply saying that we are not done the work. The timeline was not to have the work done at this point, but to be ready to make some informed decisions for the 2018-19 budget instead of the 2017-18 budget.

I hear the Members. This has certainly, I think, been heard by all the Cabinet Members. I have indicated that, if we make more progress than we hoped or planned -- and I am certainly prepared to push the department to move at a faster rate -- we are certainly willing to explore the possibly of a supplemental, but that would have to be supported by Cabinet, FMB, and the House. At this point, I still feel that it is a little premature to be putting money into these areas without a concrete, well-informed plan. Getting the money and having nothing to spend it on, that we have not done and planned for, might not give us the results we want, whereas allocating the money appropriately based on a plan could give us real positive results moving forward.

So I don't disagree with anything I have heard. I think it has been well articulated. I think the passion is there. I think the Cabinet has it. We just feel, in these particular files, that we just need a bit more time. This budget isn't the one. The next budget is the most appropriate place to make these investments moving forward.

Once again, I thank committee, and I look forward to continuing to work on these files to make improvements for residents of the Northwest Territories today, tomorrow, and into the future. Thank you, Mr. Chair.