Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated with the last motion, I think some of this stuff is very premature. This motion is even worse. We talked about taking a couple of years in the last motion, taking a couple of years to get information out to the public, get informed. Now we’re going to rush it over six months, and now six months from now the public has to make a decision on whether we’re going to have a plebiscite or not.
Honestly, our committee didn’t even hear about this until a couple days ago. This decision to do a plebiscite, we’re going to take this to the people right now? We haven’t even completed the process of talking to the people. I mean, my colleagues say they support the fact that we should be listening to the people. I have no problem with that. That’s what I’ve indicated. We need to keep consultation going. A plebiscite to force them to make a decision on that now or over a period over the next three months when we’re in the summer session, how do we get that information out to them to make that decision?
I understand. This is the perfect timing for it if we’re going to do it, but I don’t think we’ve gotten all that information out there. We haven’t had all that discussion. My colleague Mr. Moses hit it on the head. I mean, with a population of anywhere from 45 to 48 percent sitting in Yellowknife that don’t have anything to do with hydraulic fracturing, there’s a disparity there.
At this time, we need to stay the course. We need to keep pressure on our government to make sure regulations are as strong as we can have them in this territory, as anywhere else in the world. I will not be supporting this motion.