Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, we -- we've worked hard over the last four years, notwithstanding multiple forms of crisis and emergency, to go from starting off with a deficit situation to being at a point where we were announcing $178 million surplus, what feels like a very long time ago now, back in February. That surplus is all but wiped out right now. There might be some smidgy bit left of that. That's my technical term, Madam Chair. At this point, we're, you know, at $178 million while we're taking $75 million out, better part of, right now. There was the $35 million, you know, supplementary appropriations reserved that was mentioned earlier but that is largely eaten up right now. The low water season is causing serious cost pressures on NTPC. It is causing serious problems for MTS. We had a litany of problems before us, Madam Chair. So when we have to take that -- when we run out of the supplementary surplus that -- or the projected surplus that we have, then we need to start looking at taking on additional debt, which then comes with high costs of interest that I think everyone is familiar with. Government pays them too. And we have a significant growing deficit, and this will only add to that.
So all of this is to say, Madam Chair, I am very live to trying to balance the needs of fire suppression, the needs for an evacuation that maintains all of our essential needs for people - accommodations, shelter, and the ability to return home - and the fact that we are not in a position as we're still recovering to then be adding a burden of high costs on people. This is a complicated and difficult and unhappy topic. I share the Member's concern. The cost of living is high in the North and, at the same time, the needs in the North are very high. I don't know that this is the time for me to try to answer or unpack all of that. I simply want to acknowledge the complexities of it, the challenges of it, and that that's -- these are conversations that have been keeping a lot of people up at night for the last -- well, I was going to say the last week, but probably before that too. Thank you, Madam Chair.