Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to reiterate some of the comments that were made by my Cabinet colleagues here, and I will be voting against this motion. Part of my responsibilities as the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment is the Income Assistance program. There has been a lot of discussion in this House recently about the Income Assistance program, and particularly about how we can better help those who are Income Assistance clients, how we can help them become self-sufficient. To that end, I've been looking at how we can reform those programs to help make people more self-sufficient, and I can tell you that it's not free. It's going to take money, but I think it's worth it. It's worth pursuing those changes because people on Income Assistance are often just barely getting by. When you're barely getting by, it makes it almost impossible to get ahead.

Right now, the GNWT is on Income Assistance. Our grants from the Government of Canada are Income Assistance payments. While we are making progress in many areas, we have a long way to go. This project is us taking the steps to become self-sufficient. We don't have a big tax base the way they do in the South. Our government can't generate tons of revenue, so we need these types of projects to help set ourselves up for the future so that we can become self-sufficient, so that we can start seriously addressing some of the social issues that we are all dealing with on a regular basis.

Everyone knows we need more houses. Everyone knows we need better education outcomes, but those all cost money. In many cases, some of those negative social indicators are symptoms, and we can't just keep addressing the symptoms. We have to take big steps to take control and become self-sufficient. I will be voting against this motion, along with my Cabinet colleagues. Thank you.