Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will try not to take the full ten minutes here. Mr. Chair, I wanted to make sure there's some clarity -- I hope there's some clarity around what happens by voting down the capital budget and what message is being, in fact, sent.

Mr. Chair, respectfully, we are saying no to capital projects and to the capital -- when we vote down the capital budget. And contrary to a lot of things often asked about about improving our planning, improving our efficiency, doing better in all of those regards, this does the opposite. We vote down the capital budget, there is no appropriation for capital spending done now. So best case scenario is that we're waiting until February to bring it all back, which means there's no contracting, there's no procurement, no one can plan, can't arrange for supplies to be ready, and certainly can't arrange to have things ready to move as of April 1st as we might not pass the budget, might not pass it until March 31st. That is exactly why several jurisdictions, particularly jurisdictions that are challenged with supplies and remoteness, do split their capital budgets to a fall sitting from the fiscal operating budget that happens in the winter sitting, because if we don't pass it now, can't do all those things so we're left waiting to see what may or may not happen. So in a jurisdiction, Mr. Chair, where we have heard, many of us in this room, talk about uncertainty as acting as a chill on private investment, Mr. Chair, voting down a capital budget in October is a chill on private investment. We are deciding not to support the private sector in the Northwest Territories on small capital projects, on large capital projects, on projects on which they depend. So this puts projects at risk. Not all of them. Not all of them, Mr. Chair. Some might kick around and some might wait until April, but it certainly undermines planning, it certainly does stop the procurement, it doesn't promote private sector, and it tells everyone that we're prepared to sacrifice every single other project in here for other principled positions. And, Mr. Chair, I don't -- I know that -- I have certainly been in this room now for many years. I've had an MLA colleague on the other side in the last government vote against the capital budget every single time on principle, every time. So that's fair. I don't want to at all be seen to be suggesting that that's not an appropriate stand to take at some times, but let's be clear about what we are voting down if that's the choice that we're making.

Mr. Chair, on that note, again, I want to make sure that I -- I want to be fair. Cabinet sometimes -- one of the hardest things of being on Cabinet, we have constituents, we have residents, we hear from people. The challenges are not lost on us, and the idea that they are is unfair. But the conversations that we have as a group of 19 Members, in my view, respectfully, go far more and far beyond the idea that we're just not listening or trying hard enough, that the public servants, senior members, right down to the frontlines don't care and aren't trying hard enough, and that somehow by voting down the budget, that changes that.