Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a note of caution to the Minister. The provisions, as he's just read to us, are pretty broad and it really leaves a lot of room to the judgment of the parks officers. That's okay, but sometimes we may need narrow confines in the interest of the parks officers, so if anybody challenges them, they have the force of the law or regulations that they can refer to and present to the people who may object to being fined or charged because they are interfering with the natural environment. I guess this would be a whole new area for the parks officers to get into once they get into giving notices. I guess the regulations will iron that out. I just wanted to put a note of caution here, that there may be a need to put more resources for the officers to enforce these, because I think they may be subject to more challenges or more resources being spent too thin. I think the extra responsibilities they are being asked to take on, so perhaps the GED committee will receive this information later on. I just want to make sure the Minister will provide the resources necessary. It may be necessary for the Minister and officials to narrow down the...I mean put more guidelines and policy framework to assist the parks officers who will have to implement these enforcement provisions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The orders are suitably broad to allow us to deal with the circumstances or issues that may come up. It's always up to the parks officers to exercise good judgment. I guess if somebody feels that the order has been unreasonable, the ticket issued has been unreasonable, they are well within their rights to contest that in court and to not pay it and to go to court. So in terms of additional resources, we don't believe that that is necessary at this point. Currently if an order is given and it isn't adhered to or isn't followed, we end up having our parks officers call the RCMP to have the behaviour dealt with. We feel that this is simply one additional tool. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just two questions. I was thinking about this bill here. Mr. Chairman, the Minister indicated about the safety and enjoyment. I guess we have come to this point in the Territories where we have to enforce the safety and enjoyment because people in our parks don't respect the communities or the municipalities or the park that they are supposed to enjoy. Now we have parks officers who now have to get tough on them and adhere to the rules in our parks here.

I have two questions. The first question is in terms of the training for the protection of the parks and the park officers down the Mackenzie River right from Inuvik down to Yellowknife. Is minimum training going to happen with all the park officers, or will this be part of their job or skill

training while they are in school or minimum training for park officers to get a sense of what this bill will allow them to do? It talks about territorial parks up in Inuvik and down in this region. I am not sure if it's in parks in our regions in terms of who is going to enforce this. Are the only issues around Yellowknife and Prelude Lake, as has been mentioned and parks in this area here? That is my first question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Bell.

Mr. Chairman, we do have a standard requirement for parks officers for the training that they have to take. Of course, that training is updated depending on the case. It's updated as required and often annually. We do have a compliance protocol with ENR that applies to all of our parks across the territory. So that is in effect in all of our territorial parks. I hope that answers the question.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Just one more. I am looking more now at the protection of these park officers in the North here. This is more of a...I think he answered it under Ms. Lee's comment, so I don't think I will ask this question here.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be quick. A few years ago I started advocating this problem that constituents of mine had unruly behaviour next to them in the parks and whatnot. There were fires and people cutting down trees, creating trash. While they were out in a lawful way enjoying the use of their property, people were shooting guns at them. It was noted the difficulty of having the RCMP bolt out of the city of Yellowknife to an area about 45 minutes outside of the city and getting there in a timely way. The difficulty, as I saw it, was they weren't being protected by some type of enforcement process. It seemed that the government was turning a blind eye to it because they had no mechanism in there to do anything with it.

I am glad to see that the Minister and the department truly did hear the concerns from the point of view of my constituents, which was that there was a serious problem out there going on in our parks and that something needed to be done about that type of behaviour. So the Minister, in responding to the problem, struck a discussion group and I remember being at the very first meeting where he had the RCMP, MACA, Transportation, as well as his officials and several others from other areas. I am glad to see that that discussion group had some type of observation that is turning into results.

As I see this, it is an intent to ensure public safety and put a priority on public assistance first, because the issue here is that if they are not in a safe area, that's not very fair. We have lawful constituents out there trying to enjoy the activity of what lawful citizens do while people were putting their safety in jeopardy.

If someone would say government is being swift on this and maybe not going to the fullest reach of consultation, I guess government being swift is probably normally an oxymoron. I would definitely say this is something that the public would say why couldn't you constitute this pretty quickly. We are giving teeth, assurances and tools to our parks officers to do the jobs that they need to do, so they are out there to deal with the problems to ensure law-abiding citizens are safe.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, although this probably won't solve every problem out there, I can tell you right now that my constituents who I have talked to about this problem will be elated to see that government is certainly responding to their needs from a public safety point of view. They will certainly be very happy to see that we are finally listening to the average citizen and ensuring that we are responding to their needs and I am just glad to say that I am proud of that. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is speaking of a lot of the work that as a government with a number of stakeholder departments and the RCMP, we came together after the urging of a number of Ingraham Trail residents to deal with some of the concerns specifically on the Ingraham Trail. So we are doing a number of things and I referenced them earlier when responding to Mr. Ramsay. We do have more of a police presence; we do have more involvement and more participation, cooperation with DOT officials who are driving that road quite frequently. Essentially, we have raised this up on the radar and they are working to try to make a difference on the Ingraham Trail and we think we are having great success. I appreciate the Member's support of that initiative. The specific thing that we are proposing here today really only applies to territorial parks, but I would say that some of the concerns along the Ingraham Trail obviously have been troubling. We have been working very hard to try to correct those. This is one more tool that gives us some recourse within our own territorial parks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Further general comments? Is committee agreed to go clause by clause?

Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Territorial Parks Act, clause 1.

Clause 2.

Bill as a whole.

Does committee agree that Bill 5 is ready for third reading?

Bill 5 is now ready for third reading. Mr. Minister, thanks a lot to you and your witnesses. Thank you very much. Please escort the witnesses out. Thank you. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Ramsay.