Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I will start with some acknowledgments of my friend the MLA from Deh Cho. I have known the Member for Deh Cho for more than 25 years, and I have the utmost respect for him. He has been a very valuable Member, and I am happy to work with him in the House committees. I regret any stress that this has caused him and his family and, certainly, that wasn’t the intention of any of our work, but I want to go on the record as saying that.

I do find it necessary to address a few of the issues that were raised by my colleagues. I recognize that everybody knows that this was a difficult process for everybody on the committee, and for all of us to actually go through, but we are talking about a narrowly defined restriction on a Charter right. It is not for all Criminal Code offences. It is not a permanent prohibition; it is a five-year one. The rationale for the five years actually came from an existing prohibition for anyone who is convicted of major electoral offences. That is the rationale for the five years.

The committee felt that that was a valid prohibition, and a restriction of a Charter right than for the issue of Criminal Code convictions, where the judge finds that you were in a position of authority or intimacy with the victim. Then we felt that there should be a similar prohibition.

My colleague from Kam Lake talked about how we don’t have a political party system here, so there is no vetting of candidates. We don’t have that here, and we struggle with a consensus government, at times, and this is one of those struggles. I think the way that this would actually be operationalized, if it was voted on, and I certainly have the sense that that is not the case, is it would be a self-declaration process, much like the nomination forms that you fill out now for a candidate, where you indicate that you were a resident for 12 months, you are a Canadian citizen, and so on.

This would just be another part of that self-declaration process, and if anybody wanted to challenge it, the onus would be on them to bring forward evidence that somebody would not be eligible to become a candidate. I don’t think there are any operational limitations to this. I think the one thing that I really want to address is that, certainly, our committee was not asked to address the issue of family violence, or overrepresentation of Aboriginal peoples in the justice system.

We were asked to deal with the issue of trust, public confidence, and leadership, and that is what the issue was. I think these other matters are equally important and, certainly, they have received a lot of attention in this House, and for me personally. I know that I brought forward the issue of additional funding for the men’s healing program, to allow that to be spread across the Northwest Territories, and that became part of the ask by the Regular MLAs. I certainly support those efforts, but the committee itself was asked to deal with this issue of trust and public confidence.

That is, I think, what this recommendation is about. I guess I want to make a few other remarks here, that this has been a very important debate, and I do think all of the Members who have spoken publicly about this – these are very important matters, and I recognize that this hasn’t been an easy discussion or debate. It’s been quite divisive, but it is a very important one to have, for the public to see our thinking on this, and to have this discussion and dialogue.

I regret that this sort of came to a head in this kind of a setting. I think it probably will be part of a continuing dialogue that we all will work together on. I guess I had hoped for a respectful and informed debate, and I think I can say that this exceeded my expectations. Thank you.

A couple of other things I want to say; that, you know, we are not all going to agree on this, and I hope that we can all find ways to respect the differences that have been expressed in House today. I know that we are all going to continue to work on these issues of conduct, family violence, and overrepresentation of Aboriginal peoples in the justice system. You should all vote with your conscience, and that is what is going to happen. Thank you for the debate and discussion, and I sincerely thank all of the Members for their thoughtful comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.