Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to recognize in the gallery a candidate in the upcoming election for Inuvik Twin Lakes, and also a constituent of Inuvik Twin Lakes. I'd like to welcome Lesa Semmler to the gallery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not at this point. We didn't contemplate that at this point, but there may be opportunities in the future. We don't know; right? We don't know, but at this particular point, the direct response to the Member's question is "not at this point." My interpreter can interpret that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The regulations need to be developed very quickly, so we will get that done, and then, as the next government goes through the main estimates process, there may be other opportunities for input, but the regulations need to be done as quickly as possible, and we are going to undertake that work. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chair. Let's not try and confuse things here, and apologies to the Member if he misunderstood. My understanding is that they have spoken to some of the large emitters on the program, not the actual regulations themselves, as he is implying. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, the regulations haven't been shared. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I speak Beaudel English, but I still don't think that I need an interpreter. I said that I would assume that the next government coming in would repeal the legislation if the federal legislation approves our appeal. I said I would assume that they would, based on the effect that it is having on of people in the Northwest Territories. It was an assumption, and they would make that decision. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. We designed a program that would mitigate the impact to the people of the Northwest Territories, the cost of doing business in the Northwest Territories. Like I said before, the easiest thing we could have done is nothing and let the government decide what's good for us, like they have been doing for a long time. Those days are over. I've said before, to delay this to the 19^th, we need to come up with a decision. Do we just stop what we do and say, well, federal government, you take over because nobody wants a carbon made-in-the-North approach to carbon tax, and mitigate the impact of carbon pricing to the people of the Northwest Territories? We like your approach better even though it is going to cost our residents more money, and we can put that in our campaign brochure. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We don't know what the federal backstop would look like for the Northwest Territories. That is a better backstop for the Yukon. Ours may have been different. We don't know that. Realizing that the federal backstop was going to be a little harder for the people of the Northwest Territories to swallow, we wanted to work on an approach that we believe was fairer to the people in the Northwest Territories. I will go to Mr. Stewart to reply to some of the Member's concerns with the numbers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will be very quick. The easiest thing for this government to do would have been to say, okay, well, we will do nothing. We had a lot of people working on this, trying to mitigate some of the impact, but the easiest thing to do would have been to just sit back, do nothing, and let the federal government put their backstop in. Then this government would have been accused of not doing anything and letting the federal government just come in and impose their backstop on us without trying to work for the people of the Northwest Territories and help mitigate some of those impacts. I believe that is what we did. Again, as I said before, Mr. Chair, is it perfect? It could use some work. I think the Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh was asking before about the election, and, you know, if a new federal government came in and decided that they were going to repeal the carbon tax, well, it's not a tax that we wanted, and we would make amendments to our -- I would assume that the future government would make an amendment to their legislation so quickly it would probably be one of the fastest pieces of legislation ever to go through this Assembly, and rightfully so, and rightfully so. Thank you, Mr. Chair.