Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, following in the footsteps of the other Members and the fact that this being the first bill of 10 to come forward, I thought it would be a good point to make some comments about the whole process and the fact that there is very limited debate and discussion on the mirror legislation. I’m not that critical of that issue because I know when we were discussing devolution that mirror legislation was one of those requirements of devolution. I was supportive of devolution. Most of my constituents were supportive of devolution, so I think, for the most part, I’m very comfortable with the process of us providing this mirror legislation.
I agree with some of the Members’ statements about us doing reviews of some of these once we have control of them and when we are able to make some changes and go to the public on public consultation. I think that is a process and something that we should implement once we have control after April 1st . I’m very confident that the Members
on this side are very passionate about this and we will look at these amendments and these new responsibilities of the government.
I don’t want to say that we’re circumventing any system. We actually knew this going into this process of devolution that this was the way it was going to be. This was part of the whole realm of devolution. We accepted that and I think I expressed that to most of my constituents, so I feel they’re comfortable with this process. I would like to indicate to them that we are looking and reviewing where required. Some of this legislation, some of it may not be necessary. Some of it, we definitely feel on this side, and I’m assuming some of the other Members of Cabinet feel that as well, and even the GNWT, that we want to tweak some of this stuff once we own it. That’s the whole concept behind devolution, being able to put the decisions in the hands of the Northerners, so some of this process and some of this whole system will have to become NWT systems, not a mirror legislation of the federal government. Going forward, I’m confident that as a Legislative Assembly we’re going to look at these and put it out to the public what our concerns are, what the issues are out there, once we have it all established and get it going.
I just wanted to make those comments that we are not, you know, from my constituents, we’re not circumventing their opinion. This is something that
was part of devolution that we had to agree to when we took it on, but going forward, we’re putting it back in the hands of Northerners. We’re going to have a look at this in the future, I’m very confident of that.
I have no questions, really.