Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Bill 12, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1998, No. 2, has two purposes. The first is to amend various statutes of the Northwest Territories that contain errors or inconsistencies that

have been identified in the ongoing statute revision project or that have been brought to the attention of the Department of Justice by members of the public or by the staff of Justice and other departments.

The second purpose is to amend several statutes that refer to the Companies Act. That act is being repealed on March 31, 1999, and the various references to it in other statutes will be deleted, leaving only the parallel references to the Business Corporations Act. These amendments will also be brought into force on March 31, 1999, at the same time that the Companies Act is repealed. Departments responsible for the administration of the various statutes being amended by the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1998, No. 2, have each reviewed and approved the changes to the statutes under their authority.

Most changes proposed in Bill 12 are minor in nature and many consist of the grammatical or spelling corrections to either the English or French version of the statute. Other changes have the effect of repealing certain provisions of the statutes that have expired or otherwise ceased to have effect. The bill also provides for the repeal of the Legislative Assembly Building Loan Fund Act, which is spent in its entirety, and for the repeal of an unproclaimed 1983 act amending the Judicature Act. The amendments are of a nature that the preparation and legislative consideration of individual bills to correct each statute would be time-consuming for the government and the Legislative Assembly, particularly at this juncture when we must be frugal with both time and resources.

In order for an amendment to be included in the bill, it had to meet the following criteria:

a) It must not be controversial;

b) It must not involve the spending of public funds;

c) It must not prejudicially affect the rights of persons; and,

d) It must not create a new offence or subject a new class of persons to an existing offence.

Madam Chairperson, in our view the amendments proposed in Bill 12 meet those criteria and I and my officials will be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have. Thank you.