Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I appreciate the comments that have been made by everybody, and I would like to respond to some of them in closing here.

There is nothing in this proposed amendment that takes away from the process that is already set out in the bill. What this does, as some of my colleagues have said, is to clarify how the Minister makes a decision on a nominated area. There is nothing in here that will allow other interests to establish protected areas as the honourable Member for Nunakput indicated. There is nothing in here that would allow for NGOs or anybody else to nominate areas. The bill retains that Indigenous governments and the GNWT are the only parties that can nominate areas, and this amendment does not change that in any way. I don't believe this in any way interferes with the government-to-government relationship. This just clarifies how the Minister is going to exercise his or her discretion in deciding whether a nominated area moves forward.

I think I also heard that this might interfere in some way with the ability of Regular MLAs to talk to the Minister about this. I do not see that happening, at all. Of course, MLAs can talk to Ministers at any time. I don't think this paints anyone into a corner. It just clarifies how the Minister is going to exercise his or her discretion.

I agree with my colleagues in that people do want clarity, they want certainty, and they want to know that the nomination process is going to move quickly and that it is a check list and that an area is going to move into the candidate phase, where it has interim protection, and everybody can participate in that, the review of a candidate area.

Once a nominated area is actually accepted, you know, if you look at what section 11.1 says, the Executive Council on the recommendation of the Minister may approve a nominated protected area provided that a bunch of conditions are met, so that is another stop here where the Minister has, working with his Cabinet colleagues, total discretion over whether an area is accepted or not, and that is after the nomination phase. That is another check stop in here, and there are others in the bill where the Minister has discretion over an area moving forward and whether it's change or deregistered and so on.

This is about just ensuring that there is a clear, efficient process for accepting a nominated area and getting it into the candidate phase, where everybody can have a say on it, even other Indigenous governments that may not agree with an area being nominated.

I know that the Minister said that his staff prepared a list quickly in response to committee concerns around the discretion in 10.6. That is what we did, was incorporate those into this amendment. Of course, the Minister still has the ability to bring forward eligibility criteria and regulations, and I look forward to those, seeing what those regulations say in the future.

This is not about taking away anybody's authority. This is about providing clarity and making sure that the nomination process happens quickly and that full consideration of a protected area gets moved into the candidate phase as quickly as we can, and that is where everybody can have a say.

Mr. Chair, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Chair.