Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I am quite happy to confirm while the carbon tax itself remains for us a commitment under the pan-Canadian framework of clean goals and climate change, that's the federal-based system and that's why we have to continue to adapt ours. In the online annual report that is put out by the Department of Finance on carbon tax, in the message from the Minister it does quite clearly, say from me, the carbon tax is intended to encourage carbon conservation and the substitution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
So, Mr. Speaker, that's quite clear. There's a number of other. I took the chance to have a quick look at Hansard just to make sure I'm being very clear. And it is important that people realize no one likes paying more taxes, no one likes the carbon tax, but there is a reason behind it. I want to find solutions that will reduce carbon taxes in the North because -- so that we have less reliance on fossil fuel use. That's the point of the carbon tax, is to get people off fossil fuels. And, Mr. Speaker, again, I realize we all know that that's difficult in the North but, nevertheless, on another occasion I had the chance to say we don't want to be on fossil fuels; it is not helping the climate. It's expensive. It's not the way of the future.
Fundamentally, this is what we need to do. So semantics or not, Mr. Speaker, we do need to find a pathway off of fossil fuels. And the last one, just to make sure that we're very clear, Mr. Speaker, I think it's when we had some federal Ministers visiting us here, we want them to see the lack of alternatives. If there's federal money that it can start to come here so we get off fossil fuels. We need to do that for climate change reasons. We need to do that for the cost reasons, and we need to do it because it's the right thing to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.