Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think, you know, a lot's already been said as the previous Member said. I mean, I don't want to fully reiterate comments that are made but certainly offer my support to my colleague from the Sahtu and the people in Norman Wells. I know this is a difficult -- a difficult situation to be in and I can't imagine, you know, facing costs like that and trying to figure out how you're going to balance the bills because the bills don't balance.

Something I wanted to speak to that I haven't heard much of yet, so I thought I'd just add some points rather than kind of reiterating ones that have been made is just, you know, the Member for Sahtu kind of spoke to the need for short-term solutions and need for long-term planning, so I wanted to speak a bit to the long-term because it's something I have been thinking a lot about. And I think long-term, we really need to be thinking hard about what we're doing to help build resiliency of our small communities, particularly the ones up the Valley, and reduce dependency of these communities on these barge shipments, reducing dependency on the need for all this fuel coming in from the south, because ultimately that's the problem that we're facing here is this dependency, and we need to be building the independence of our communities. So I've been thinking about what we have or perhaps a better way of putting it is what we haven't been doing to prevent things like this from happening. So in my mind, I think, you know, speaking to the current crisis and the low water levels, perhaps that isn't something we could have predicted, but the high cost of living, climate change, these are things that we've known about for a very long time.

You know, I think back to when I was a young student at Aurora College, I did a tech project where I was investigating the biomass potential of the Mackenzie Valley and I was out, you know, with my equipment measuring willows and trying to quantify, using some software, the amount of biomass potential in the Mackenzie Valley, and it's enormous. We have huge potential for heating fuel here in the North, and it's a local source. And that's something that I think is really important. And I really wish when we're facing a crisis like this that have put a bit more time and thought into -- and maybe some urgency behind putting solutions like that in place so that these communities don't end up in these situations. So that's something that's really been on my mind. I think that looking forward in the long-term, we've got to be forward thinking and not be getting caught off guard by these things that I think, you know, the low water levels was unpredictable, but the fact that cost of living was going to come to a head is predictable. It is. We know that this has been an issue for a very long time. It's an issue in my community also. And, you know, I spoke to a lot of people at the doors during the election. A lot of people were raising concerns about the carbon tax, about cost of living, about, you know, the pressures that they're facing and the decisions that they're having to make, the difficult decisions that they're have to make when they're looking at their bills and having difficulty making ends meet. And I still hear from residents about being able to make ends meet, and it's really difficult to hear, and it definitely gives me a sense of urgency. And you know, when I think about the carbon tax revenues that are currently being brought in, I think the first and fairest and best use for these, these kind of revenues, should be used to help people transition away from the fuels that are providing the high cost in the first place. And when I think about the potential for biomass and other solutions in the Sahtu, in the Mackenzie Valley, you know, there's opportunities here to build community resiliency, reduce living costs, reduce dependency on shipments from the south, and create permanent jobs and an economy that's centered locally with local resources. That's a huge opportunity. That would be a really positive thing for many of our communities, and it would also help us build resiliency against crisis because I think that we need to be thinking as leaders how can we prevent crisis, not just respond to it. That really needs to be -- we need to be ten steps ahead as opposed to playing catch-up. So I -- you know, right now, we're not in the position of being ten steps ahead. What we're talking about is a moment of having to catch up. But what I want us to get to is a spot where we are saying we saw this problem coming, we know that there's solutions that we can put in place, these are solutions that could build resiliency in our communities, and we are putting the work in to making sure that that happens.

So that's really all I wanted to say was that's kind of what's on my mind when I'm thinking about long-term solutions. You know, there's -- there's advantages and disadvantages in the territory, and both of them have to do with the size of communities that we're dealing with in a lot of cases. It's very expensive to service communities over a vast land mass, but one of the advantages that we have is that the communities are quite small and so solutions like district heat are, relatively speaking, easier to put in place in smaller communities than they would be in huge cities. You know, when I think about the challenges that, you know, giant cities are trying to face in terms of building the kind of resiliency I'm talking about, it's a huge challenge. In the Northwest Territories, we're talking about relatively small communities. So I think actually think there's a lot of opportunity there, so we need to grasp those opportunities, help communities build their resiliency, help build up the economy of these communities locally, and I think that that's one of the long-term solutions. So that's one of the things that was on my mind.

But I did want to say that I'm supportive of us getting solutions in place. I think the situation that the people in Norman Wells are in is just simply untenable. You know, Mr. McNeely's been very eloquent and very determined in making sure that MLAs are well aware of this mounting crisis, and as the MLA for -- we're all forgetting the different districts today. The MLA for Range Lake pointed out the -- you know, the MLA for the Sahtu has been very vocal about this, has been, you know, e-mailing Members all through the summer. Like, this is not something that he's been quiet about. So all credit to that MLA for representing his constituency while he certainly hasn't been silent. And I do support us taking whatever measures we need to support people in Norman Wells and make sure that their costs are covered. Thank you.