Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Wildlife Act and its provisions are provisions that are of fundamental importance to aboriginal groups. The existing provisions are provisions that, historically, aboriginal leaders and Members of the Legislature have paid a very high priority to. Any type of change that would imply changes to the residency requirement for obtaining a hunting license will have to be discussed with aboriginal groups and the general public.
How I personally feel about it has very little to do with it. I know we had put a question to the Department of Justice last year asking if there was a way, in a hypothetical situation, to provide an exemption for the two-year residency requirement under the Wildlife Act for members of the RCMP and the Armed Forces.
The response was that the Charter of Rights provisions would make it difficult to make viable exemption provisions under the law. We could be subject to challenge. If it was challenged, then the exemptions would not be able to be sustained.
Those are the comments by which I think we are guided. If we could do it and the aboriginal leaders and organizations were in support, it would then not be so difficult to forward changes to the residency requirement. Generally speaking, we seem to be of the view that the changes to the residency requirement would have to apply to everyone in the public. Thank you.