Thanks, Madam Chair. I just thought there might be some Members who might like to make a few comments on the process and so on.
The report lays out pretty well, I think, and in a fair bit of detail the process we had to follow. Bills 1, 2 and 3 followed our normal process. They were read in the House to second reading and then referred to committee, and committee held a public hearing and asked for comment from the public, then held a public hearing and then reported it back to the House as ready for third reading.
But the other seven bills, the process has been kind of hijacked, I guess, is the best way of putting it. We didn't do it willingly, I guess. It's a matter of time. We didn't have the time in which we could properly consider these other bills; we didn't have time to refer them to committee; we didn't have time for public consultation. We agreed, as committee, that we would have these bills go directly into Committee of the Whole and bypass the consideration by committee at that stage.
I think the major concern for me, and I think for committee as well, and I think it's expressed in the report, is that even though these are mirror bills, there is an interest on the part of the public and there is an interest on the part of Members to look at the NWT bills and to determine whether or not there are some gaps in these bills, whether or not there are some statements in these bills that maybe we don't agree with from a territorial perspective. They may work in a federal perspective, but if they're going to be ours, do we totally agree with what's in this legislation? Not to change it at this point but to have some things on the record so that in future, when we are looking at the legislation, we can go back and say, well, in 2014 we did have representation from various people who said this is not quite what we want in legislation, this is not quite what we want in this piece of this legislation and we then have a bit of a base on which to start and look at changes to the legislation.
The fact that we couldn't do that while we're considering the bills is a bit of a concern. There is a recommendation in the report, in a motion that I will read shortly, that specifically recommends that we have a very public review and a very broad review across the territory for all these pieces of legislation, which we haven't been able to review as a comment. We can't do that until after April 1st. But as of April 1st when the bills become ours, we can then start the process of reviewing them in consultation with the public and come up with some potential amendments.
I don't know, Madam Chair, if you want me to read this motion now, or if we go to other comments from people.