Mr. Chair, the way you deal with that is by creating an economy. You attract more people. You build and sell more houses. That will generate more fees to begin with. I mean, we are running into a soft economy. Things are going to be slowing down. We are continually chiseling away at residents' earned dollars. Their take-home net pay is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. At some point, they are just going to reach tipping points where they just can no longer survive. I have said it before: the worst thing about this job is when you get those emails or those phone calls from residents that say, "You know what? I am packing the van as we speak. I can't afford to live here anymore." Yet, we are a government that continues to say that we want to lower the cost of living and that we need to attract more people to the North.

The Minister can continue to say that this is modest and that it is hardly an increase, but that is the same thing the City of Yellowknife says when they propose a new property tax increase. It is the same thing when we say we are going to put up an airport tax fee. It is all just modest, but it is not modest to the homeowners and to the residents of the North when it is slowly chipping away from their income. That is hurting our economy. We are taking away from disposable income.

You know, if we haven't learned anything in the recent months about how dire the situation is out there, then we need to open our eyes. I still stand by the fact that residents need a government that is going to support them in reducing the costs of living. Thank you, Mr. Chair.