I think that's a very hard question. For those of us living in the Northwest Territories, and for my colleagues in Nunavut and the Yukon, who can speak for themselves and are in a similar situation, we're affected on a daily basis by climate change. Growing up in the north, what we experienced even 20 years ago or 30 or 40 years ago is very different. I have a litany of events that I could talk about.
Water levels are down. I think that this year we might have had -40°C once, for just one day. It used to be that you'd get -45°C for three months straight. We have wildlife species showing up in the north that were never there before, such as cougars and white-tailed deer. As well, the treeline is moving further north. The Beaufort Sea used to be ice-free for four and a half weeks a year, and now it's ice-free for 15 to 20 weeks a year because it takes longer for the ice to form. We used to wonder if a grizzly bear and a polar bear got into a fight which one would win, but we see our hunters shooting hybrid bears, so I guess they don't always fight when they get together.
Also, it's affected the way we build our roads. We had to change our road construction. It's affected the way we build our buildings, because we live on discontinuous permafrost.
All of these things affect us. We have a very good arrangement with the Government of Canada. We signed on to the pan-Canadian climate framework, whereby we're going to work with the Government of Canada. We are very concerned that the carbon pricing mechanism will add to the high price of living, but we've been able to work with the federal Government of Canada. We'll find ways to make it work.
Thank you.