Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for the record, I just wanted to confirm my understanding of the purpose and intent of this bill. I do support the bill. Obviously it's a minor amendment and I understand this to be a bill that would make it possible for there to be a judge appointed who is not necessarily from here, but that would not necessarily be the main practice. I do think the general sentiment up here is that wherever possible, that we will be appointing judges that are from here and you have to be a lawyer to be a judge in this country. So I would think that you would first look at lawyers in the North to be considered for any judicial appointments.
I understand for the higher level of courts here, judges do come from outside the jurisdiction and because of the workload and sometimes conflicts, sometimes you have to...So for higher courts, there is still a Court of Appeal for Alberta and obviously I don't know if there is a question there. I won't go there. Sometimes we need to use judges who are not resident here, too.
I understand this to be a practical thing and to build in some flexibility to where our judges come from, but it's not in any way to dilute our desire to have, wherever possible, the judges to be appointed from the North. I just want to try to state my understanding of this bill and to support it in that way. If I didn't get my information right, he is welcome to correct that. Thank you.