Thank you, Madam Chair. October 17th , the Economic Development and

Infrastructure committee read a lengthy report, quite detailed, on some of the issues we’d seen and come across. We don’t go through that report again today, but I’ll use the occasion, as Minister Miltenberger has, to acknowledge that a lot of work

and collaboration has gone into the Wildlife Act and the work provided in a small part, in a small way, by the Economic Development and Infrastructure committee was a challenge we were certainly up to.

Although, the Minister has pointed out it’s been almost 20 years to bring this to where it is today, the hard work by many can’t go without acknowledgement. Without partners in Aboriginal governments or working groups or SWAAG group, we could not have been here today. I really appreciate the fact that the Minister took an extra moment to acknowledge Sue Fleck, who we all know has put her life into the development of this Wildlife Act. Without her early stewardship as well as the current folks, we wouldn’t be here today.

Although she’s moved on to retirement and probably quite happy, I’m sure she’d be quite pleased to see the Wildlife Act passed here today, if it is done so through the Assembly process.

With that, as chairman, I don’t have any specific remarks but I just wanted to use the occasion to say it was a work and task we willingly took on and are glad we are here today. However, as we said in our report, the government can anticipate probably some new motions on many particular issues which we’d raised during the public hearings, they raised from mandatory harvesting reporting, training, using of aircraft and a few other mechanisms regarding special harvester licences. But nothing in particular, just more of a general statement of saying it was work, it was hard work and we were certainly glad to be part of it. If the Assembly chooses to move forward on this initiative, we will be glad to see this chapter moved to the next phase.

I would be remiss if I did not mention one more thing, although I was going to leave it at that. A significant amount of regulation power will be invoked once this is done. If this act passes, that is, and it will require significant collaboration, once again, to come to the table to find a way through this. The Minister, through public documentation, or I should say the department has, through public documentation, said that they would use the same collaborative and outreach approach to draw out these regulations. That said, it won’t be easy and I certainly don’t welcome the headaches that I can see coming forward, but wildlife is a resource for everyone and I look forward to the final product that will one day, hopefully in our near future, be fully implemented.

Madam Chair, with that, I just thought I’d lead in with a few opening remarks.