Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here to present Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Vital Statistics Act. The bill makes a number of amendments to the Vital Statistics Act. The Vital Statistics Act has been in force since 2013 and these are the first amendments to the act. Societal attitudes to transgender people are changing and it's also a time of reconciliation with Aboriginal people. The amendment to remove the requirement for gender reassignment surgery from the act brings the Northwest Territories in line with human rights decisions and progress in other provinces and territories.

Proof of completed gender reassignment surgery in order to process a change to the individual's sex designation on their birth registration and certificate is no longer accepted practice in Canada. Human rights decisions in a number of other provinces ordered governments to stop requiring proof of reassignment surgery for changes to sex designation.

When change in an individual's sex designation the amendments will allow the Registrar General of Vital Statistics to record a third sex designation. The options for sex designation will be male, female or X. The third designation is for those people whose gender identity is not exclusively male or female. Some transgender residents of the Northwest Territories have requested a non-binary option such as an X to better reflect them. The use of gender designation X is becoming increasingly available in many jurisdictions. Some provinces such as Ontario have adopted its use and the Government of Canada is proposing to allow X on federal identity documents, and a number of countries already utilize X on passports.

The other changes facilitate residential school survivors reclaiming names changed by residential school system. These amendments will fill a gap in the act that may prevent residential school survivors from reclaiming their previous name if they had a single name. The act currently mandates a first and last name and single names are not permitted. The amendments will allow a person to register with a single name if the single name is in accordance with the person's traditional culture.

The requirement for first and last name will still apply in the majority of cases. Revitalizing Aboriginal language is a priority of the 18th Legislative Assembly. Currently, the act does not allow the Registrar General to register a name unless it is written in the characters of the Roman alphabet. The Roman alphabet is used by many Western European languages including English and French. This may prevent residential school survivors from reclaiming their previous name. Removing the requirement for names to be registered in the Roman alphabet is the first step to registering names in Aboriginal languages with characters that do not exist in the Roman alphabet. An example is the glottal stop that represents a sound in Dene for correct pronunciation of the name.

Implementing these amendments in our electronic information system will present a significant technical challenge and we're working with partners on solutions. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank standing committee for the review of the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.