That was exactly what I wanted to know, that there is an opportunity for an economy of scale by joining other jurisdictions. In this case, I’m curious to learn that Alberta is near to that and they’re obviously our neighbour, the one we do the most business with. Is there potential, given the timing of this legislation and their action underway, that we could hook up with Alberta in their possible pending action? Thank you.

So just for my clarity here, there are no partnerships between jurisdictions like provincial and/or federal in the actions that are underway.

Minister of Justice.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. They have their own bills such as the one that’s before us now. Each jurisdiction has their own initiative to proceed with their lawsuits. Mahsi.

General comments in regard to Bill 23. Ms. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Has anyone had success to date in any lawsuit? Is there any precedent law been set, any precedent ruling been set with respect to public governments suing tobacco companies to recover costs of health care services? Is there any precedent?

Of course, I’m also curious to know what kind of money we are willing to allocate as a government if we are going to embark on such an action against tobacco companies. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Shaner.

Would it make sense for our government, being a small jurisdiction with limited financial resources, to perhaps hold off on trying to develop some kind of action against the tobacco companies until someone else has basically broken the trail, has gone ahead of us, has proven in the courts that it is actually possible to get compensation for this? Again, I know there’s some economies of partnering with other jurisdictions that are pursuing the same thing, but just in terms of our timing and our resources, if we could see the success that someone else had and try to mirror some kind of an action on what someone else has done in a province that has a lot more money than we do, would that be not the wise course of action to take? Thank you.

Minister of Justice.

Mr. Chair, I’ll get Karan to elaborate more on this particular area, but I just want to stress that there is a national strategy that the parties are involved from provincial and territorial jurisdictions. Once we file, let’s say the bill comes into effect and we file a lawsuit, we’ll be part of that national strategy. So we can seek out the information and input and others on what they’ve been through, but if Karan wants to elaborate a bit more on Ms. Groenewegen’s question.

Ms. Shaner.

Mrs. Groenewegen.

I have six minutes on the clock left, thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister when we would partner or collaborate with other jurisdictions to proceed down this path, supposing we get to that where we’re going to try and recover health care costs, are the actions of our government going to be judged and the question asked what did we do to mitigate damages ourselves? I would suggest that other jurisdictions have far more proactive legislation rules when it comes to this, like, for example, people smoking in their vehicles with the windows rolled up and their children in there. I mean, it’s a well known fact that health effects of second-hand smoke that will manifest themselves, surface later in life. Sometimes they are tracked back to children who are exposed to second-hand smoke. We don’t have the most up-to-date kind of rules over those kinds of protections. I mean, would it come back on the GNWT and say, yes, you do have high health care costs related to smoking, but what did you do as a jurisdiction to mitigate the harm of tobacco through cessation programs, through protection of children, through whatever we could do, prevention measures. Would we be judged on what we did or did not do in relation to the success of such a lawsuit? Thank you.

Mrs. Groenewegen, you have four minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s all I have. Thank you.

General comments. Minister of Health.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that we extend sitting hours to conclude the item currently before committee.

A motion is on the floor. The motion is not debatable. To the motion.