Thank you, Mr. Chair. You heard me say in my opening comments that I would like to see this initiative, this bill, translate into business opportunities for northern entrepreneurs, and this committee motion supports that.

As the report alludes to, committee heard in a number of communities that they wanted to see the opportunity for economic diversification. A number of the communities are in situations where employment is in dire need. This could be seen as an opportunity to help vet that.

We also understand that this is an opportunity in which we can make cannabis use a little bit safer. If the only avenue that we are going to undertake is selling cannabis through a handful of stores managed by the territorial government, then you can bet that the back channels of illicit sales and black market activities will continue.

The government, I think, can look at this as also the opportunity to generate additional revenues through taxation. The more opportunity that we allow for the market to get into the retail of cannabis, then certainly this is going to become a revenue generator through permits and taxation.

This clearly supports our mandate as a government as it relates to economic diversification, as it relates to support for even manufacturing, and most certainly for small business and entrepreneurs, but most importantly, this also will have our government develop programming, and that programming will help to further inform and educate those people having an interest. One can envision, potentially, BDIC having specific programming to do just that. For those reasons, I will be supporting the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.