Thank you, Minister Sebert. Next on our list we have Mr. Nakimayak.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't reiterate too much of what everybody said. I think we've all heard it so much in this last hour that we need to look at other things.

Being from a small community perspective, like my colleagues Mr. Nadli and Mr. McNeely, drugs have been in the small communities for quite some time. I remember growing up and going to school in Inuvik when there was a lot of cocaine coming down through the Dempster Highway. With the new highway to Tuktoyaktuk, we are going to kind of see some of that, you know. Every time there's an opportunity for a highway or other avenues to travel, all good and all bad will come with it.

Sometimes we focus maybe on one facet of something. There might be, like, seven or eight, you know, as much as a diamond. How many facets in a diamond? We need to look at all of those. As well, you know, I'm looking at this paper here, and we're talking about this bill, and I'm wondering why didn't we talk about all these other bills that are on this brown sheet of paper while we were travelling with this marijuana legislation, as well? Because, you know, everything that happens within that bill will have an effect, you know, social assistance, social services, on health, education, all of those aspects of it. I think we need to look more broadly.

You know, some of the meetings we've had recently, there has been a lot of disagreement. We're not all the same, you know. Everybody has a right to agree or a right to disagree. I think what we need to look at is, okay, a way forward and championing that rather than, "Oh, my God, this is an emergency," knowing this was coming from the federal government. We didn't really have a choice. We had a chance to react, and this is how we're reacting to it? I think we need to take a look around and see how we could make this better as we move ahead.

I think there's a good opportunity for communities to start to look at their bylaws. Some communities do not even have bylaw officers in the community, and some communities have two police officers. You know, we're taking a little bit of burden off the police officers so they can actually do some positive policing in the communities, like going out fishing or hunting, get a softball game, go coach hockey or baseball, whatever it may be. We need to look at those aspects of this and say, "You know what, there are a lot of good things out of this as well as the concerns." Everybody has concerns.

I know I do for my region. I was up in my region recently, and I actually saw some marijuana, you know, delivered in the mail, and this has been going on for some time. It's not a shock. You know what, it's either that or bring it in legally. You know, we look at communities that are going to possibly make a prohibition to not have marijuana in their communities. We need to educate them, as well, to use this as an education tool to educate them that, you know, the black market is still going to be there; it's still going to thrive. Community members will still be paying the high amount that they may pay for marijuana, you know, rather than a community that does not have it.

For the communities that have liquor stores, you know what, I am from a small community. In the past, I remember ordering from, you know, the Inuvik liquor store to get some wine into Paulatuk. It's going to be like that with marijuana, as well, too. It's nothing. Nobody is reinventing the wheel. What people are trying to do is refine it so that it's actually workable, so it has, you know, less impact of harm in the communities.

We did one tour of the communities. You know, we've seen them once, but imagine living there and seeing that on a daily basis, what the impacts are of illegal marijuana. The communities that have totally banned alcohol, it's still there, and, you know, in a sense you hide that aspect of all of the illegal things that are going on. You can either ignore it, or you can say, "Hey, you know, we need to do something about this and educate people the right way."

There is a good opportunity to move forward, the best way forward. Together, whether we agree or all disagree, it's going to move forward just the way it needs to. I believe that, you know, there's a six-month term where it gives the government time to, I wouldn't say make corrections because we don't know what mistakes will be made yet. It will give the government time to take responsibility for the shortfalls.

Actually, some of the people who may fall through the cracks on this, who may rely on it too much, it gives an opportunity to work with them, and I think the government has the best opportunity to do that. The government has a lot of resources that they can fall back on, not like some private entrepreneurs. If we give this to private businesses right away, it may be, in a sense, stepping off, starting off, on the wrong foot, and I think we need to look at that and look at all the implications if we do something like that and what's next. You know, we need to maybe have seven or eight plans, and, you know, maybe this one, maybe the government has already looked through, all the professionals in the departments have looked through all this, and maybe that's the way forward, the best way forward, seeing how it's so rushed. You know, if we say that it's so rushed and we are not ready, do we expect to give an entrepreneur a licence tomorrow, saying, "Hey, we do not know, but go ahead and, you know, see what happens." That is kind of going in off of the deep end. I think we need to tread our way in slowly and work together on this.

You know, I look at social media, see the tweets even about myself, you know, voting on things like that. I'm, like, wow, we need to keep this in a professional manner and work forward together on this, not, you know, take jabs here and there. I think we need to all kind of work together on something like this, because this is something of significance to not just people of Yellowknife but people all over the Northwest Territories.

There are 33 communities in the territories that are looking at this, you know, and some people see it as an opportunity to do something good, and I think we need to, as well. A way forward, I think we're already halfway there right now, tonight, and it gives us time to look at it this summer and go back to our constituencies and how can we help. You know, there are also other governments to consider in the territory. The Government of the Northwest Territories is not the only government in the Northwest Territories. You know, there are a lot of Indigenous governments who take pride in what they do, and there are a lot of economic development arms of those Indigenous governments who could change their policies overnight, unlike the government, where it may take some time, so we need to rely on them, too. So, when we are developing things like this, we need to look at the businesses and the professions who've worked at that for, you know, years and years. We are not the professionals here, but we have a lot of resources that will direct us in the right way to make the best decisions.

That's all I have to say, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Nakimayak. Would the Minister like to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Only to say that we fully realize that there are different opinions out there and there may be a difference in opinion overall between the larger and small communities. Doubtless, there will be some surprises and perhaps some unintended consequences of our legislation. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Members, may I please remind you to have your devices on silent. It's getting a little distracting. That's the second time tonight. Mr. Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will actually be brief, unlike the other 10 Members who said they would be brief and then went on. I have talked a lot about cannabis and this legislation. I am profoundly disappointed in what has been put forward. I know that we can't do everything perfectly. The Minister has stated that.

Perhaps I am just out of step with this government, because my priorities don't always line up with this government's priorities. As I was quoted by the Member for Yellowknife Centre, it is less than once in a generation that a prohibition is lifted. This is something we are going into for the first time. There will be mistakes, but we have to do everything we can to mitigate those mistakes.

I don't fault those people in the department working on it. I would have liked to see perhaps more resources put to it. The people who developed this policy and drafted this bill, maybe if they weren't up so many late hours because they actually had a few more people in their shop, it might be nice. Next time that something like this happens, maybe the departments can come to us and say, "We need a few more resources." As the Regular Members, perhaps we can give that to them.

With this bill, I see it is not guided by the future. It is guided by a fear, fear of the unknown. Instead of listening to the youth, because that is what I was really driven by was the youth, we had a lot of conversations with a lot of people on the road. There were two distinct thoughts. There was, "Let's do this right so that we don't go down the same path we did with alcohol, where there are bootleggers and people making a living off selling this product and there are not drug dealers selling fentanyl-laced cannabis. Let's do it properly." There was that school of thought.

Then there was the school of thought where, "We shouldn't do this at all. We should stick with the status quo, be as conservative as possible." That is what I see this legislation doing, being as conservative as possible, not moving forward, digging its heels in, and saying, "How can we keep things the same?"

I don't know. I am quite disappointed. I'll shut up now. As we go through, I will talk about each of these clauses. Like some of the other Members have said, too, if you had told me when I was younger that I would be sitting here working on legislation to legalize cannabis, I wouldn't have believed you. It is pretty mind-blowing. I just wish we could have done more. We didn't have enough time, but I think we could have done better if we tried and if we collaborated a little more. I will end my comments there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Would the Minister like to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I suppose in some ways it would have been better if we had had more time, but we didn't. The federal government proceeded. Frankly, we didn't have all that much time. I guess we are fortunate that there is likely to be a slight delay in the legalization from July 1^st, which would have really put in a difficult situation if legalization was a month and a day away. Instead, it looks like it is going to be, as I understand it, mid-August, so we have been given a little more time. I suppose it is not enough.

I think the bill is a good compromise and will serve us well in the future. It may need changes. As I mentioned earlier, there may be some unintended consequences that we haven't foreseen. That is always possible, but laws can be changed. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Sebert. Next on the list, we have Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before, I spoke as one of the co-chairs of the joint committee. Now, I will speak as a Regular Member and a representative for the constituents of Kam Lake. We often challenge the attitudes and policy direction of this government from this side of the House. The challenge can seem critical on days, but it comes from a good place. That place is: be ambitious. Be willing to embrace change when change is needed.

I have heard the Minister say in reply to nearly everyone's opening comments, "We didn't have a lot of time. We didn't have a lot of time." We had two years that we knew this was coming. Certainly, we didn't have the federal legislation to review, but there are jurisdictions in the United States. There is Alaska, which is a similar northern context; different economy, certainly. There are areas we could have looked at. There has been much said about Colorado's experience. There have been news reports about how their early cannabis implementation failed to achieve the public policy objectives.

There were steps we could have taken. Instead, the Minister and Cabinet delayed for as long as possible. They delayed until the federal legislation happened and waited until the committee had scant weeks to work together to improve the bill. From the degree of amendment to the bill, it clearly needed improvement. There were technical errors that needed to be addressed, which isn't uncommon, but just shows how rushed the entire process felt.

There was no need for this. I firmly believe that we could have embraced this as an opportunity to make our community safer, to generate some economic activity, to set zero tolerance for impaired drivers, to keep our kids safer than they have been in the history of us dealing with cannabis as a controlled substance. Those are good things, having an optimistic and ambitious attitude and a creative response.

Instead, for retail, we have the Liquor Commission, which is not a perfect system. Members have risen on the floor to criticize the liquor system consistently. Members of the public, members of my riding criticize the Liquor Commission, that it needs reform. Yet we are going to adopt the exact same structure to do cannabis now? I mean, we are not even talking about a system that works. We are talking about a system that needs reform that will now have another problem attached to it.

Our neighbours in the Yukon have a supply agreement. They have a price for cannabis. We can't get a straight answer on that. In the last budget round, when we knew cannabis was coming in months, we couldn't get a costed plan. Not a penny in that budget for cannabis that was clear and announced and gave the public confidence that the government was dealing with this responsibly.

Again, we have a massive bill dropped on us that has put many Members in an uncomfortable position to deal with something they weren't prepared for. We had two years to prepare for this. We could have applied a creative solution to get the best results possible. As my honourable friend from Hay River North has said, this is a government that is fundamentally conservative in its approach to policies.

I spoke to people who went to the cannabis engagement and spoke to public servants who were at the event representing the Department of Finance and said we are going to do the Liquor Commission. How is that a fair consultation that is taking into account what people have to say, if the government has prejudged the outcomes?

Then when we hit the road and speak to members of the community. They have no idea what is in the bill. It becomes our responsibility as Regular Members to provide public information for a massive societal shift. I don't accept the Minister's comments that we didn't have enough time.

He speaks of compromise. As other Members have said, we are all trying to work together and work on behalf of our people for the good of the Northwest Territories. Who is the Minister compromising with? Why do there necessarily have to be two sides of this House at this moment, when we could both be accepting a bill or a cannabis regime that has the best results for everyone intended?

The government has accepted the vast majority of the committee's amendments, the committee's improvements, to the bill. I acknowledge that, and thank the Minister and his colleagues for doing so and concurring with those so we have a more complete bill.

There are two motions that are outstanding that are of significant concern. They are backed up by the evidence. They are backed up by the consultations. They are backed up by what Members agree is the best way forward, and we can't do it because we are afraid of it, because we don't know how it is going to work, because we are not sure of the market.

I say we need to be bold. I say we need to be ambitious. I say we need to make this a transformative piece of legislation that is going to help keep our communities safe and help achieve the results that prohibition has never given Northerners and never given Canadians. This is an opportunity. We shouldn't be shying away or saying this was imposed on us. The policy direction came from Ottawa, but this is an opportunity for us to fix a problem in society with comprehensive legislation that has vision and can transform our society. That is what I am here to do, Mr. Chair. I hope that by the end of the proceedings today, we will have accomplished that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Would the Minister like to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Staff worked very hard on bringing this bill forward. I understand that we were the first territory to introduce legislation, and in fact, we were ahead of some of the provinces. Of course, we looked at what other provinces were doing, and I suppose our legislation somewhat reflects what others were doing, but also our unique circumstances in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Testart mentioned the improvements that committee has suggested and those which we agreed to on the bill. Of course, that's part of the system we have, and I thank them for that. The bill wasn't perfect, it may never be perfect, but it has been improved by that contribution, so I would like to thank committee for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Sebert. Is committee agreed that there are no further comments?

Can we proceed to a clause-by-clause review of Bill 6? Does committee agree?

Does committee also agree that we consider the clauses in groups?

Thank you. Committee, we will defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses. There are three schedules, A, B, and C, in the bill. We will go through each of the schedules individually before returning to the clauses of Bill 6, which are found on page 1 of the bill.

Let's turn to page 8, Schedule A, Cannabis Products Act. There are 72 clauses in Schedule A. Clauses 1 to 4. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Clause 5. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that Schedule A to Bill 6 be amended by adding the following after subsection 5(1):

(1.1) Before the Minister designates a person to act as a vendor under subsection (1), the Minister shall ensure that the person meets the prescribed criteria.

(1.2) If a person meets the prescribed criteria, the Minister shall designate that person to act as a vendor unless the Minister provides a reasonable justification for not doing so.

(1.3) The Minister shall not require that, in order for a person to be designated as a vendor under subsection (1), the person must also be designated as a vendor under subsection 34(1) of the Liquor Act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. A motion has been made. The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Testart.

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.