Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I begin, I’d just like to thank Mr. Dolynny and Mr. Nadli, as well as any other Members who have brought a lobbyist registry before government. I’m happy to speak on it today.

When we discussed this in committee, the first thing that came to mind was transparency and accountability on our government and our departments and how we do business throughout the Northwest Territories. The public and public offices have the right to know who is lobbying our government and who is going into contracts with our government. We need to know which groups, businesses and organizations meet with government, what was discussed and those need to be documented in terms of some of our local contractors not having that opportunity to get in those front doors.

With that said, I know we do have some people who get paid as lobbyists and I think the paid lobbyists should not impede the free and open access to government as well. So when we have organizations out there that would like to meet with our government that sometimes they might not get those appointments because there are other groups that are paying lobbyists to come and meet with government.

I know Members on this side of the House and even in the public, in the media, we have organizations that are concerned about the negotiated contracts that our government does make a common practice of. In some cases it’s great because we negotiate with local businesses and Aboriginal businesses. However, there’s not that fairness that Mr. Nadli has spoken about earlier in terms of moving forward on this. So I do have concerns with negotiated contracts and how those come out and I think a lobbyist registry will give me some answers and the public some answers on why contracts are negotiated, but also how this government makes their decisions and how dollars are spent and how taxpayer dollars are spent in some projects and programs and services throughout the Northwest Territories.

So with those all said, I did have a concern, though, just in the cost of creating this registry or if there’s going to be an office that’s going to be associated with it. I strongly support that it does need to be accessible 24/7 via the Internet and having some kind of a resource in that way, but I will support the motion, which asks to investigate the best way to implement a lobbyist registry that is publicly accessible via the Internet.

So I’d like to thank the Members again for bringing this motion forward and for being able to speak on it. Thank you.