Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I don't have an official report as I and other committee Members took part in reading our report back on the review of Bill 22, Waste Recovery and Reduction Act, into the House yesterday.

Just in general, Mr. Chairman, there was general support from the large group of presenters that did come out to our public reviews that were held during the month of August and into September, finally concluding here in Yellowknife in this month of October.

There were four motions of a minor, non-substantive nature that were moved. We reported the bill as ready for Committee of the Whole as amended and reprinted and are prepared to go through this. As I stated, there was general support, but also some concerns with how the regulations would be formed. We were happy to hear the Minister state that he would have the advisory board or committee work with the department in possibly helping with the setup of regulations that would bring ease to a lot of the concerns out there. Concerns around how this would be implemented, what kind of paperwork would be in place and how would it affect the small businesses that are out there and would now have to collect this fee and turn it into the government.

With that, Mr. Chairman, we look forward to proceeding with this and bringing it to conclusion with passage of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a short note to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to put on record a brief comment in support of the bill and its principle and its intended action. Mr. Chairman, as you're aware, this has been in the works for several years now. In the spring it almost fell off our agenda due to the demands put on the legislative workload, but I am certainly happy that we were able to see this until this stage. I believe that this is very good legislative action and it will certainly trigger a program that would allow a recycling program in the North that I believe is long overdue. I don't really have much else to add other than to thank all the people involved in this legislation and the department staff who work to incorporate the suggestions that were brought up in the consultation process. I would like to wish the bill well and I hope it has a very good and long, prosperous life. Thank you.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to echo the sentiments of my colleagues and first, thanking the Minister and his department for bringing this legislation forward. I know they've been working on it for some time. We know it almost didn't make the cut off for getting dealt with in this government because we had so much on our agendas, but it was a public priority. It was apriority of people of the Northwest Territories. That was my sense, at any rate, from the amount of input and feedback I was getting. All credit to the department for recognizing that and for doing what they could to bring this back. So I would like to thank the Minister, also his deputy and the staff of the department, who I think certainly had a personal commitment to seeing this through. I am glad that they have had that.

I do have a couple of questions and I did make a public presentation on some potential concerns that were raised with me and they really relate to the administration of the first program. The Minister did talk in his opening comments about consultation. I wanted to ask just a little bit about the advisory committee and get some understanding from the Minister as to who might make up this committee and my interest is in seeing people involve din the industry who know the business on the advisory committee. Is that the Minister's desire as well? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Further from the Minister, as the regulations are developed for this and for other programs, there will be discussion with all MLAs, or at least committee, so that committee and MLAs are able to go out to their constituents and receive input if there are any problems, any concerns, any hang-ups, we can deal with them at that level before we have implemented a program that possibly could cause us problems down the road. Will MLAs have that chance to look at regulations as they develop? Thank you.