Thank you, Mr. Chair. The motion before us, I support the idea because I think, as Northerners, sometimes we are given what we receive and sometimes we do not have a choice. What we are facing is an imposition of a tax, and, seeing people struggling in small communities, you know, a further tax on their household income is crazy, I mean, if I could just put it bluntly, especially at this point, as we kind of move towards the idea of an election. People will gauge your performance on whether you support a tax or not, and that is what we are facing at this point. Besides that, I serve on the committee that was tasked with doing the consultations, and I have to disagree with the Minister saying that we are to blame because of the lack of consultations. I take exception to that because I think the Minister and Cabinet had all of the authority and power and influence with the federal government in terms of trying to rationalize the imposition of this tax and how it could work for Northerners. Have we exhausted every effort? Have we done our best for the interests of all Northerners? In the meantime, as a committee, we were expected to take that on the road and tell people, well, this was the best thing that we could come up with? I'm sorry. I don't buy into that. For those reasons, we are left with the debate at this point.

We have to stand up in terms of where we are as Northerners, especially in small communities. This imposition of this tax to further burden people who are struggling in small communities is unbecoming. That's where I stand. At the same time, in terms of this motion, we have to try and at least see if there is a way that we can buy some time, perhaps for the next Assembly, to make some modest improvements on the tax. Mahsi.