Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is consistent with other motions that the committee has brought forward, including amendments to bills that I will not reflect on further. This is an important piece of business moving forward into the next Assembly. We have this peculiar artefact in the Petroleum Resources Act that my colleague spoke of where there is a public gazetting process. The federal policy on this is to allow for public comment during gazetting, and in the case of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, outright consultation with Indigenous governments if any regulations are to be drafted and changed.

This is not foreign to the Northwest Territories. In fact, in regards to our co-management system, I think that something that everyone is comfortable with is the operation of the MVRMA, whether it is industry or Indigenous governments. I think that we must take a position on this, and the government has basically asked for time to figure this out. This needs to be one of the first items of business moving forward. Curiously enough, the requirements for notice and public comment in the Petroleum Resources Act was not removed from the legislation when amendments were brought forward to update the bill, and if that is so problematic, I am not sure why that wasn't done.

Nevertheless, it is important that this gets done and that we allow the public to be able to comment and at least see what these regulations are going to be, especially when regulations are the real meat to the skeleton of our post-devolution legislative framework. It is imperative that we give the public and Indigenous governments the right to be heard on these regulations moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.