Mr. Speaker, the NWT signed on to the Clean Growth and Climate Change Framework. Carbon pricing is actually an element of that. We didn't sign on to carbon pricing just yet. We have an MOU that we are in the final stages of drafting, or it is in its final stages right now. We have not signed that yet.
The Member is correct. We were against carbon pricing when it first came out because we knew that it was going to have a detrimental effect on people in the Northwest Territories. Once we realized that the federal government was going to implement this regardless of whether we were in or not, then we took steps and showed some leadership in coming up with and made an NWT approach that we thought would benefit or minimize the impact of the federal backstop. Had we gone with the federal backstop, it would have been quite costly to people in the Northwest Territories. I would encourage the people not to stand by the border because people would have been leaving so fast, you would have gotten run over. So we have come up with a plan that, although not perfect, addresses a lot of the concerns that we heard from the public across the Northwest Territories.