Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the chairman's comments and I would like to say that that's the answer I would have hoped to get. I think that's the view of most people in the Northwest Territories.
I would like to make an additional comment, Mr. Chairman, if I might, again regarding the experience in Iqaluit in local control. I think the community deserves to be commended for having taken the initiative to deal with the problems that were occurring with sometimes unrestrained alcohol consumption in private homes. The community said to the government, we're not saying that our community should be dry, but we don't want to make it quite so easy for people to purchase liquor through the government-operated liquor store, and the Commissioner and the government of the day responded.
I would like to say that when the committee report notes the premise that there should be increased control at the community level, based on the experience of my constituency, I would like to say that I believe this control should extend not just to options for possession and ordering of liquor in a community but it should also extend to the question of establishments licensed by the government to sell liquor.
I think that when the paper and the legislation deals with the question of local control of liquor, it should be broad enough to include taking into account the views of a community about whether or not a liquor store should be established in a community.
I know that this has been and will continue to be an important issue in Iqaluit, but I suspect it will also be an issue in other communities. It may be that in a community where a liquor store is established, they may discover that certain problems were created that weren't there before and I would hope, as the citizens of Iqaluit were able to do, that the community could subsequently petition its government to reconsider the establishment of a liquor store in that community.
I think local control should include local control over vending establishments as well. That might also be the nature and the hours of operation of such a vending establishment in a community. That may go without saying, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to note that on the record, having particular regard to the experience of Iqaluit. Thank you.