Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few comments and I know the Minister is well aware of some of the concerns that I had during the process bringing this bill forward. So I'll keep my comments fairly brief. Obviously, I'm in support of the bill as it is today. I have a few minor difficulties with portions of it. I don't agree that it goes far enough in terms of getting to the one-window service delivery model that was envisioned when this was first thought out and entered into. There's certainly a lot more that I think the department and the new BDIC, when it is formed, can do to try to ensure that we do get to that true one-window type of approach to delivery of business programs in this territory.
One of the key things for me in this was the regulations, and I know we've certainly got a commitment from the Minister that he'll try to involve the Governance and Economic Development committee as much as he can in the development of these regulations. I know they're going to come from the new board when it's put into place, but I think the earlier on in the process that the Minister involves the Regular Members who are on GED and the other Members, for that matter, in the rollout of these regulations, the better off everybody will be.
The other issue that I had quite a bit of concern with was the fact that in the new organization the employees are going to come over from the Development Corporation as public service employees and, in terms of strict transparency and accountability, I would prefer that the employees were outside the public service. But I can understand and I can appreciate the reasons that are in place today that would see them come over as members of the public service. So I voted against that clause in the bill when we went through the public hearing and looked at the bill clause by clause. I voted against that clause, but I'm not going to stand in the way of this proceeding because I think it is a step in the right direction. Most certainly it just gives us the opportunity to grow that much more. Under the current way things happen with the Development Corporation and the BCC, I don't think there's that room for growth and improvement like there is
under the new BDIC. So I certainly look forward to seeing what can happen.
I know I spoke, too, about duplication. Maybe even in the Minister's department, it will be the new ITI department and some of the overlap that the investment and economic analysis might have with positions that will be located in the BDIC. So things like that certainly have to be addressed. I understand that once the board has been chosen and the new president comes on board, some of these things can be addressed.
The way that we're going to identify the owners and locations of businesses under the new bill, Bill 16, I think is a drastic improvement over the way things have been and are today. Having that full disclosure and the transparency and accountability that comes with that, I think is a step in the right direction.
I think that's about all that I wanted to say. Again, I'm going to obviously support the bill. I know we've done a lot of work in trying to put this together to where it is today and I do look forward to it proceeding. But, again, I just wanted to make it known that if you look at the way the setup is today, we're not changing too much. Really if you look at it, we're not changing anything until the new board comes in, the new president comes in and some serious changes are made. This bill allows that to happen. So that's a good thing because the way things are right now, it isn't working the way that I would suppose it should. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to make those comments and I didn't really have a question to the Minister at this time. Thank you.