Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to just briefly indicate that I am in support of this legislation. Hopefully it will help us reduce the amount of garbage that we put into landfills and divert waste for reuse or recycling, which will extend the life of land fills.

Over the years, since I've been a Member, I've heard from many of my constituents that this type of legislation should be a priority for the government. So, as Ms. Lee indicated, I was quite concerned this spring when I heard the legislation might not proceed and very happy that the Minister and his department were able to work with the committee to get the legislation to this stage. It's important because I've heard from a lot of people that we need to have legislation that provides residents of the Northwest Territories with the opportunity to participate in recycling programs.

In the North, waste disposal is a challenge for all of us. I know it's certainly something that I experienced when I was a Member of city council. There was always a big concern about how we would deal with waste and the fact that it takes up so much space. Developing new dumps is always a difficult process, just identifying them and then developing them for use. I think that this is going to be an important tool in our arsenal to help reduce the amount of materials that go into our landfills.

In order for this to work properly, we're going to have to make sure that the communities are fully supported to implement the legislation because if it's too much of a burden it won't work. People won't be able to make it work. The successful implementation will also be dependent on the support and the desire of people in the North to make it work. To achieve that and to get the broad public support that we want, the legislation needs to be introduced with a plain language communications campaign.

I note the Minister, in his opening comments, talked about consulting during the development of the programs. I want to really encourage the department to make sure that plain language promotion programs are also used to get people aware of the need to reduce, reuse and recycle and to get people involved in the recycling process. Hopefully this sort of legislation will help create employment as typically there are more jobs associated with recycling of waste than with simple landfill and disposal.

The other thing we have to work towards - and hopefully this legislation will help - is to better promote a climate of conservation or you might say a conservation ethic among our residents, so that we are all using our resources wisely.

So in closing, Mr. Chairman, I am happy to see the bill at this stage. I support the bill and I sincerely hope we will see the program grow very quickly to encompass the other materials that the Minister, in his opening comments, said we might see in the not-too-distant future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.