The department has looked at a number of ways of doing this. Unfortunately, there is no way of getting around the fact that the board members were elected for a fixed period of time. Any change to that period of time, to extend it, would be antidemocratic.

If you are elected to a certain period, if the voters vote you in and they think that you are going to be there for this many years because that is what the legislation says, I am not willing to extend that. What would be required would be a plebiscite, similar to what municipalities do.

I believe in democracy. I am a strong supporter of democracy. I do not believe that we should be extending term limits. We are not kings here. We are politicians who were duly elected. That being said, the department has had conversations with the education authorities. We are committed to working with them to mitigate the cost as much as we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.