Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a few issues in there. I think I've caught them all.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, we're not Alberta. They were dealing with less than one percent of their population that was forced to be evacuated. We were looking at almost 10 percent of the population in the Northwest Territories being evacuated. And, Mr. Speaker, I know folks are looking at Alberta. I suspect folks in British Columbia were looking at Alberta, as were folks in Saskatchewan looking at Alberta, and even Nova Scotia might, frankly, be looking at us because they were offering, at last count, only $500 per resident although under a certainly different system than what we were under.

Mr. Speaker, we don't have the fiscal capacity. We are running a deficit every year. We run less of a deficit when we have an operating surplus, but we do run a deficit, nonetheless. What we tried to do is to take our fiscal capacity and fill some gaps.

So, Mr. Speaker, looking at actual costs, our first priority was to minimize those costs. So that's where you have the EMO stepping in and providing transportation, food, shelter, you know, immediate toiletries, etcetera. I realize folks don't necessarily want to stay at the emergency evacuation shelters but they were there, they were available in order to minimize costs and to fill those gaps for folks who needed it most.

Similarly, Mr. Speaker, this is where we had the United Way offered $150,000 to help encourage donations, and they were over $500,000 earlier this week when last I checked. They too are helping to fill some of the gaps and to minimize the costs that residents are facing.

But what we then looked to is so knowing that some of the costs are being filled by these different sources, Mr. Speaker, we're looking at folks who had income disruptions. A lot of individuals still continue to receive their income. We did also ensure that public servants were receiving -- GNWT's public servants were receiving their income. But for those who face an income interruption, that's the group we wanted to try and target. We selected the $750, again, Mr. Speaker, because we're trying to be fair. Income assistance already was providing a thousand dollars for someone with a dependent or $500 to an adult. Putting it at $750 tries to be fair within all of those parameters that I have described. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.