Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to start with some -- I think in hindsight, I believe both the Minister and committee would have done this differently, and I think there's some lessons to be learned here. You know, it's unfortunate that, you know, that the Minister and probably quite a few of the staff and a lot of the MLAs weren't allowed -- around for the last carbon tax but if you were ever introducing legislation on any topic, go look if there's an old committee report about it because these committee reports make the same recommendations every single time and there is -- there's stacks of them that go unresponded, and then the issue comes up and, you know, in an Assembly or two later and the same recommendations get made. And I thank MLA Cleveland for pointing out that the last committee made the same recommendations that this committee made.

Madam Chair, I do want to thank the Minister for addressing the regional cost of living offset payment. That was a concern that we heard, that it wasn't fair to give a person in Yellowknife the same amount of money as a person in Nunakput, and they should be getting more. So I do think that's a good step.

Secondly, I just -- I think there's a lesson to be learned in replying to all committee motions, to be very careful about the responses. There's actually I think a bit of a disconnect in what I've heard the Minister say since and what was in the response to the committee motion.

In the response to, you know, regulating some sort of revenue sharing that was tabled by the Minister, it says burdensome and overcomplicated that doesn't allow the flexibility. And it seems to be this insistence by the Department of Finance that we're going to give back exactly revenue neutral and we're going to track what the community governments, you know, get and make it exactly the same every year. And that's not how I view the commitment here of approximately 10 percent. I view this as a political compromise that we came to. There's about $12 million in the GNWT in net revenue here that we're using for all the programs and services that everyone in this House talks to about every single day, and we're going to give about 10 percent of our share, approximately $1.8 million, to community governments because they do just as important work. And ultimately, Madam Chair, I am supportive of the carbon tax as is because of that money for community governments. I fought hard to get that included, and I want the Minister to go back and find a way to -- if it can't be in legislation, put it in regulation, and if it can't be in regulation, put it in a policy. We have community government funding policies. Peg it at 10 percent, and it has to increase annually with each of the carbon taxes. And there's clearly a lack of trust between us and the federal government and us and the Cabinet. And it's kind of who do you trust more. And I do trust the Cabinet more. But I take the Minister's word that she's going to find a way to make sure that we continue to share revenue with our community governments out of the carbon tax just as we are introducing one of the largest taxes in decades on our own citizens to fund our programs and services via the federal government's carbon tax. So they need their cut. And ultimately when I look at the regional cost of living offset that we had negotiated, our made-in-the North large emitter program, and the 10 percent net revenue sharing with community governments, those three reasons make me trust Cabinet just a little more than I trust passing this all back to a federal government that I don't particularly like, Madam Chair. Thank you.