Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to provide a few comments if I could. I know, along with my colleague Mr. Bromley, we have read the report into the House the other day, but I just want to again thank the committee for the work it did on Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Dog Act, as well as I want to commend the Minister of MACA, R.C. McLeod, for his work on the development of the amendments to Bill 16 and appreciate his work on that as well as the staff at MACA that brought this to us. We appreciate that.
Of course, the important thing is what the public had to say. I can’t believe the amount of traffic that we received on Bill 16 and the amendments during the public hearing process. There were just some big crowds in Inuvik, Hay River, Fort Smith and here in Yellowknife. There was a lot of interest in the amendments. A lot of people are watching the progress of the amendments to the Dog Act, Bill 16, not only in the Northwest Territories but around the country and around the world, for that matter. I’ve received e-mails from countries around the world that they’re interested to see what we’re doing in trying to prevent cruelty, neglect and abuse of dogs in our Territory.
So, again, I just wanted to say I really appreciate all of the comments we receive from the public. Everybody that made presentations to the committee while we were in the various communities, and maybe a couple of special mentions to a couple of people; Ms. Bonnie Dawson in Hay River. She’s worked tirelessly at promoting animals and protection of dogs in particular in the community of Hay River and around the Northwest Territories and she’s to be commended. She’s a great champion for the protection of dogs and animals and I want to thank her publicly for that devotion. Also Nicole Spencer, president of the SPCA in the Northwest Territories and also Linda Eccles with the SPCA in Inuvik as well, I wanted to just make special mention to those folks for all that they’ve done in getting the amendments to where they were. I think those folks had a lot to do with the turnout at the public hearings that we saw when we were in the various communities.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I’ll conclude my comments. Before I do that I just again wanted to thank the staff, Ms. Knowlan, Ms. Tumchewics and Ms. Langlois, as well as our Law Clerk, Ms. MacPherson, for their help in getting this to where we’re at today. Thank you.