Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just sitting with the words of my colleagues here. And I think that the first thing I want to say is, you know, just an expression of how much I respect and value the positions of my colleagues and the different perspectives that are shared here regardless of whether -- which way you go on this vote in particular or any vote, really. You know, I deeply appreciate, respect, and value our democratic process and the people who put us all here to represent them, and part of that respect is respecting the different voices that are brought to the table. So I appreciate the comments of the previous speakers.

The bottom line for me on this one -- I don't want to repeat too much of what's already been said. Like I said, I appreciate those comments and, you know, we've all got places to get to, families to go home to or call. And, you know, the real sticking point for me on this one, similar to my previous colleagues who kind of spoke to housing, the ultimate sticking point for me was a word, the word notional. The word notional that meant a notional commitment to a plan but wasn't able to fully commit to that not knowing where necessarily the money would come from. And I think the Member for Yellowknife North kind of spoke to being prepared to have the conversation about what we need to do in order to shift our resources towards our priorities as necessary. And as I've been saying through this process, I'm very open to that conversation. Still looking forward to having it. And so I was looking for us, similar to the Member for Yellowknife North, to not be notional about our planning, but to make a plan, commit to it, be willing to fund it with our resources.

Ultimately, when we came together as AOC and drafted the letter that we all ended up, you know, publishing in this House, making public by tabling in this House, I wouldn't have put my name behind that letter if I didn't mean it and I was not prepared to stand by it. I am prepared to stand by it, and I will do so today.

I want to speak briefly to, you know, the conditions of housing in my riding, in Yellowknife, in the communities, in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Chair, before taking on this role, I served for a number of years as -- on the board of directors of the Yellowknife Housing Authority. I got a good idea as to what the housing issues are in our community, my community. In particular, the most impactful moment I had during my time on the authority was when we went on a tour of some of the housing in Yellowknife. Some of the structures were fairly new, were, you know, exciting to look at, and I was happy about what is being brought forward for residents. But some of the places where people are living in in Yellowknife, the conditions are appalling. They're -- I don't know if I can quite find words for it, but the best way I can illustrate what I felt when touring through those buildings was no child raised in a building like this is being set up to succeed, and it stuck with me. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever when I put housing at the top of my list when I ran for election that this is an issue that we need to resolve. You know, very few people write you a message or call you up and say this is the exact reason I voted for you but when you put a platform on the table, you have to assume that it had some role in getting you elected. Housing was at the top. And so I feel a strong obligation to keep it at the top until I feel that we're making substantive progress towards it.

And so for me, what I wanted to see was more than a notional commitment, was for this government to really step up, allocate resources to our housing crisis, as we need to, in order to lift people out of the conditions that I just described. It is very important to me, and it remains important to me. For that reason, I join my colleagues who will not be supporting the capital budget. And, you know, I appreciated the comments from the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. He was kind of mentioning, you know, we're taking a very somewhat operational perspective on the budget through capital budget negotiations but as the Member for Range Lake noted, you know, this is the tool that we have. And so I was prepared to use that tool to put pressure on the government. And I want to be clear, like some previous Members have been clear also, that, you know, I very much appreciate the position -- the very difficult position that the finance Minister's in, I appreciate and respect that perspective. I appreciate the various, you know, concessions and the seriousness with which Cabinet approached the concerns brought forward by Regular Members. I do have confidence that they are taking us seriously. We didn't quite get where I wanted to get to, and that is part of how this system works.

Something that I wanted to -- I always like to kind of come back to this because it's a bit of a passion of mine, but something I did kind of want to note is something that I noted to the clerk the other day during one of our chats that, you know, sometimes things can be really difficult in here. This is not an easy job. It's certainly a job that involves a lot of pressure. It's a job that pits very strong perspectives against one another, between people who I care about, people whose perspectives I respect greatly. But as I said to the clerk, you know, we are having the right conversations here. We're here fighting about the issues that matter to the NWT. We're here fighting about -- fighting is the wrong word, but we're here kind of discussing the major policy issues that this government is facing and the directions that we're going to go with the territory, and that is what is described by practitioners as healthy conflict. It's the right kind of conflict to be having in a building like this. So I want to just kind of highlight that and note that I think that we are having the right conversation, that the conversation we're having right now is the right one. You know, I've landed on the position that I have. I wanted to stand strong in the position that I took, and I will continue to do that. So I think that wraps up my comments on capital budget for today. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.