Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you to my colleague who just handed me a piece of paper. Mr. Chair, again, we've had a spirited debate around this. Some comments are based on what correspondence was received by committee members during the committee review, some have been based on concerns raised around this, and some have been based on information that's not represented in this amendment.

I want to address the Minister's comments. The Minister said that we have these arrangements and these agreements, or these relationships in place, and we don't need to legislate those; and yet, we have an intergovernmental council that is legislated. An intergovernmental agreement is a legal agreement that council would set up to manage the relationship between devolution partners. There's no real need for a new body according to that logic. We have bilaterals. We've heard members from land claim organizations speak to the strong bilateral relationships between their organizations and the GNWT, and yet, we have an intergovernmental council. We chose to do something new. This legislation is an opportunity to do new things as well.

This is something, I'm not making this up. It's not the honourable Member for Frame Lake writing a dissenting opinion and deciding, let's go our own way. We presented the supporting evidence from the committee hearings. We presented the supporting evidence that we heard directly from Indigenous people. This was something that was asked for, and I think the previous amendment was a stronger one than this, but on this one, at the very least, again, it creates a clear legal path for how we want to move forward on co-drafting. Whatever process emerges from the intergovernmental council and the bilateral conversations that occur, great. Come up with something everyone can agree with, and then move forward with this new power.

The Members who have raised the concern that this creates an anticipation that the Minister will use this power, well, the Minister is creating that expectation, and his colleagues in Cabinet are creating that expectation, by going out and putting out terms of references. This expectation already exists. It started as soon as the technical working group was assembled, and the expectation has been repeated time and time again in written submissions, in public appearances, and that's been collected in committee's report. The submissions we received from the public are some 200 pages. This bill had a great deal of public interest, and more importantly, a great deal of interaction of both the government who drafted the bill, and Indigenous partner governments, and the committee who reviewed the bill and Indigenous partner governments. Every aspect of this institution, its executive branch, its legislative branch, has been working in partnership in respective functions on Bill 38. These are just improvements we found, and I feel very strongly that we have been given very clear indication that something like this is exactly what the expectations are that are out there. Yes, there can be another process that's identified, and perhaps that will be superior, but it would have been nice to know that going ahead. It would have been nice knowing more information about the co-drafting process. I commented a number of times that I had learned more in three weeks than I had in three years on co-drafting because most of that process was almost a tightly guarded secret.

It is nice to see this process play out, but, with incomplete information on how we're going forward, we're doing our best to put the aspirations of our partner governments into legislation.

I fully expected that this motion will not carry, but I think it was important to put these concerns out there, and for the Indigenous governments who came forward and requested more direct engagement in statute. Their rights and the relationship that exists is properly defined in these very important pieces of legislation. I think this motion is also for them to know that their concerns are not lost on deaf ears, and we've heard them loud and clear, and we are attempting to address that in a meaningful, tangible way; not just with words, but with real action, and that's what this motion represents. A recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Chair.