Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few things that will really catch my heart. This SCAN legislation is one of them. It is very close to me. I can really understand where the Minister is coming from. When he first introduced this bill in the House here and he brought it to committee and we took it to the road, we heard the people in the communities speak from their heart and from their personal experience. I can empathize, sympathize and can also relate with them. People that were talking, some of them are here today and some of them are not here.
Madam Chair, we are good people in our communities. Some of them are my friends who we are talking about. Some of them are my constituents who I am working for. Some of them are just not listening to anybody and just continue to do what they are going to do. It is sort of a "catch me if you can" attitude. We will catch you. There are consequences to what they are doing to our children. There are consequences to what they are doing to our people. These people are competing against us. As government, we hate competition in some of our business. These people, through this motion, may live another day just to read it. But they should really think about what they are doing to their people through this proposed legislation that the Minister has brought forward for us to think about.
I commend him because he is a leader that looked at this issue that is very serious in the North. It is something that he is proposing to do because we have talked about treatment centres and programs. It just seems like we have not enough soap box, not enough money to deliver on some of these programs we want. We could go back further to the federal government in terms of them not providing us with enough money. We go through that whole scenario. Madam Chair, the matter of the fact is that people in our communities are looking for help.
People in our communities want something to get done. We have a lot of good suggestions. This suggestion here of a SCAN, the proposed legislation, not yet. It is a good idea. It is a good concept. We need to continue working on shaping it. We have to shape it, all of us and with our members and with our elders, as Mr. Lafferty has said. Take into some serious consideration as to really think about this as workers. There are too many questions out there.
Madam Chair, I heard the people speak. I have listened to them. It is not a bad thing to defer this bill. The liquor legislation and the Workers' Compensation Board, how many Assemblies have they gone through to finally see the light of day in this Assembly? Several. The Species at Risk Act. I would love to see that we have done some work on the 15th. It is the next Assembly. That is a big piece of work. Maybe it is quite fitting that the Species at Risk Act, also this legislation go together because those things are happening. Those species are going to be at risk.
Madam Chair, we are a consensus government. All these here need to be considered with all the people, 40,000 people in our region. There is a lot of work and lots of good people out there that need help. There are a lot of ways to help them. I agree with Mr. Miltenberger, Madam Chair, in terms of we need a police officer in Colville Lake. We don't need another police officer. Colville Lake said to us in the report they want help. First, we need to go back and get our priorities straight. Again, Madam Chair, I would like to say that, when we look at this here, I am very comfortable that it will be brought up again in the 16th Assembly because this issue here we talked about so many times, Madam Chair, in assemblies in our communities, and we are going to do something about that, the bootleggers, the use of illegal drugs in our communities and other illegal activities. I think that's paving the way for government to really stand up. I commend, again, the Minister for bringing this forward, the leadership that he has brought and to say let's have some good discussions. That's government and you have to go through it slow through our consensus government. Our people out there are the ones who talk to us. I'd like to really give it some serious thought, listen to my people and prepare ourselves properly...(inaudible)...one united voice to say yes, this is a good SCAN. This bill now is ready to be implemented. Madam Chair, I'm going to support the motion. Thank you.