Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish to make a short comment, once again. I want to make a comment in support of this bill. As has been mentioned a couple of times already, this particular bill has been in the works for at least two or three assemblies. I am sure there are employees and people involved in this bill that are going to heave a big sigh of relief once we get this through here. I understand that even our sister territory, Nunavut, has passed their version of these amendments.

Mr. Chairman, I understand this bill to be one that will empower the municipalities to govern themselves and have more power to do so, and it will also reduce the liabilities that they are responsibility for at the moment where it's appropriate so that they could ease the burden of insurance premiums and such.

Throughout the review of this process, I do believe that the committee Members paid close attention with respect to balancing of interest between the municipal governments to do their job, versus the interest of the public and other stakeholders whose interest it was to protect. So there has been a lot of work done on this. Not only the employees, but the NWT Association of Communities has been very, very involved. Throughout the public hearing process, we've had the Yellowknife mayor appear before us as well as the president of the association and many other councillors and such. I do believe that this bill is a result of incorporating most of the suggestions that were made. For those suggestions that have not been incorporated, I believe it's one that the majority of the people who came to talk to us could live without because the interest is so high to have this legislation passed that all the parties involved were willing to make compromises to see the essence and the integral part of the legislation see the light of day.

I'm sure that I may have some other comments to make where it's necessary as we go through this bill. It is quite a lengthy bill and it's one that has seen lots of amendments and changes in its life until it got here. But by and large, the bill as a whole I do believe is very timely and one that a lot of people are anxious to get through. It is one that would give more power and independence to the municipal governments to make decisions about their borrowing and other aspects of liability and such. So I'll just conclude my statement there in support of the bill. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.