Thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion applies to much of the work of the standing committees of the Legislative Assembly. Oftentimes, the committee is put into a position of defending a government bill, and its role is rightfully to review that bill. Having access to some of the questions that the public wants to ask is crucial to ensure that we can clearly define the roles of the executive branch and the legislative branch and so those respective branches of government can operate effectively.
A plain language summary attached to the public consultations on bills such as this one would greatly improve the public's understanding of our process and answer the questions that they might have that the committee is either not in a position to answer, unable to answer due to confidentiality concerns, or simply does not know the answer. This motion calls for those plain language summaries to be prepared ahead of time for major legislative initiatives so that the public is aware of what the contents of those bills are.
I should note that, in some of the cases with the other bills that have been brought forward in this House, extensive work was done on plain language summaries that greatly assisted the public's understanding of the bills and the standing committee's review of those bills. Those processes are a good template to follow for the future. Thank you.