Thank you,

committee. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Thank you. Mr. Minister, can you please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. I have Ms. Sue Fleck, director of wildlife for ENR, and Ms. Kelly McLaughlin from Justice. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Miltenberger. I will now open the floor to general comments. Are there any general comments? Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one

other brief comment. I know Ms. Fleck is with us this afternoon. I just wanted to thank Ms. Fleck and the department, as well, personally for all the hard work she and the department and the Minister have put into this piece of legislation. It is much appreciated, Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Ramsay. I didn’t hear a question, but to the Minister.

Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the comments from the Member, and the staff from ENR and all those that have helped work on this deserve all the accolades they get. They are greatly deserved. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister

Miltenberger. Next on my list, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank

you for the opportunity to comment here. Bill 6 is clearly a comprehensive piece of legislation, a long-awaited piece of legislation, and a key part in the puzzle in protecting and working to keep our ecosystems whole across Canada. It is very unique and really, in terms of wildlife legislation, it talks mostly about the process rather than species, so it is unique in that respect and I think reflects an innovative response and reaction, really, to the

northern situation we have here with the development of various regional governments and so on. In fact, I see it almost as a bit of a model that we could think about, or a guide for political development in the Northwest Territories. Consultations have been comprehensive, extensive, broad engagements with the land claims organizations and regional governments. I particularly enjoyed participating in this, taking this bill on the road and speaking to people across the Northwest Territories. One of the things that struck me was the recognition that people have, and especially sort of the traditional approach of a holistic or, really, if you will, an ecosystem approach to looking after our land. Of course, the benefits are that habitat is often the basis of problems. When we start losing our habitat or disrupting it or poisoning it, we start losing members of populations of wildlife and eventually they can get to the point where they are threatened. Fundamentally recognized by people is looking after habitat and I hope that will be reflected in the Wildlife Act as well. So I don’t really have questions, except...I don’t have questions. I would like to, again, say thanks and compliments to all those who did participate on this piece of work and especially in the department. It has been a difficult one and I think a lot of lessons learned along the way in our new administrative and governing world here, and so there was a lot of patience and persistence in particular that has brought this to the table today, so all kudos to them. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr.

Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. I share the sentiments of the Member. I believe that the process that we engaged in with Species at Risk Act is the one we are going to use, or we are using for the Wildlife Act and we are using a similar process with the Water Strategy. So I think it is a way we have to work together to get the issues like this done and to get the collective support of everybody. So thank you to the Member for his comments.

Thank you, Minister

Miltenberger. Next on my list, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I,

too, would just like to thank all the committee staff and community members for each community that we did go to. The community consultations went really well. I would like to thank all of the people in the communities for coming out, thank the Minister for all the hard work and my committee chair and yourself, too, as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Jacobson. General comments, no question. Are there any other general comments? Is committee agreed that there are no further comments?

Agreed. Can we

proceed to the clause-by-clause review of Bill 6?

Agreed. Does

committee agree that we defer the consideration of the preamble until later and deal with the clauses initially?

Okay. We will now

begin the clause-by-clause review of Bill 6, Species at Risk (NWT) Act, which begins on page 14. Due to the length of the bill, does committee agree to review the clauses in groups?

Agreed. So we will

begin on page 14, clauses 1 through 10. ---Clauses 1 through 10 inclusive approved

Agreed. Turn to

page 21 for clauses 11 to 20. ---Clauses 11 through 20 inclusive approved

Agreed. Clauses 21

through 30. ---Clauses 21 through 30 inclusive approved