Thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion represents the work of the committee, and it is one of the motions that committee agreed to bring forward, that was passed at the clause-by-clause review, and that the honourable Minister of Justice did not concur with. I am bringing it forward again to reflect the work of committee and to reflect the common policy objectives that the committee agreed were important and that Bill 6 must contain.
This amendment to the bill will allow for the immediate designation of vendors outside of the Liquor Commission system. Granted, regulations will need to be developed to ensure that those vendors have prescribed criteria. Although this does not speak to specific regulations, it is more appropriate that the government address that, should this pass.
The Alberta model of private retail has extensive regulations for vendors that have already been set out. For example, you can't have a criminal record, and you have to have a credible business interest. I believe that the committee developed this because of the concerns we heard from the public. Just to put it into context, even in some communities or some segments of the population who weren't completely sold that legal cannabis would be safer or achieve those public safety objectives, they were so concerned about a lack of economic activity in the Northwest Territories that they saw this as something that could boost their local communities, that could create jobs and create an economic opportunity.
Further, when you look at what this bill is designed to do, it's not going to make the black market disappear overnight. That's unrealistic, and I have heard criticism of these approaches. Even the whole legalization effort started by the federal government, that "you're joking if you think the black market is going to vanish." Of course, it's not going to vanish overnight, Mr. Chair, but it will give us better tools to deal with it than we currently have. Without tools like this that will allow for the wide distribution of cannabis in a legal market on a controlled basis, I fear that we will not effectively disrupt the black market.
One of the examples that stuck with me when we engaged stakeholders in the community of Tuktoyaktuk, one of the town councillors told us that they had recently started bringing flats of beer into the community, and they were able to increase the supply and lower the cost, and that had largely relieved many of the serious problems that they had seen in the community because of abuse of hard liquor. They had changed behaviour by making the supply more accessible. When we asked, "Well, what would you propose to do with cannabis?" they said, "The exact same thing." Open a store. Make it cheap. Make it available. If we do not change the legislation to allow that, we are going to end up in the same situation.
My honourable friend from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh said it better than I ever could, and I really respect the position he's coming from. He's seen it all, as have many others, but where he's coming from is exactly the concern, that we are creating a two-tiered system. We are creating regional monopolies through liquor stores that will be run by the Liquor Commission and relying on mail order in communities where people don't have Visas, where the shipping is high, and the cost isn't going to go down. There will be no incentive to switch from bootleggers and drug dealers.
We need to do better, and this motion will allow us to do better. It will bring about private cannabis stores far quicker than the government's current agenda and allow us to disrupt the black market, to put economic opportunities into the communities, and to keep people safe, and that's exactly what the committee wanted to achieve when we agreed on this amendment. I hope that we see the support today, when we vote on it, that we did when we worked together to develop it. Thank you.