Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to take the opportunity to say how delighted I am to see the legislation that came forward, the final form of this legislation. Earlier, when we were consulting with the government on how best to bring about changes to our land acts, there was a lot of back and forth between the standing committee and the government, and one of the strong desires of committee was to get a move on with amalgamating the acts into a single piece of legislation. This is something that has eluded the Yukon, for example, for more than 10 years, and committee felt very strongly it could be done, and the government has done it, and they deserve to be commended for that approach.

Now, it's not perfect, and I think there are some other improvements that can be sought, but it's a very good start. From the public's perspective on our consultations on this bill, most of the issues that Northerners have with land access and land tenure are largely confined to policy decisions rather than things that can be addressed in the legislation, so I think this legislation puts the department and the government on solid footing to better administer the public land of the Northwest Territories and to start resolving some of these entrenched policy issues that have held back economic development in local communities, that have created uncertainty and confusion in untenured land, and we can finally start to move forward and abandon the piecemeal approach we have taken to resolving some of these land issues in the past.

I was very pleased to work with the government and to find the Minister and his staff open to considering the viewpoints of committee and ultimately working together on consensual amendments to improve the bill. There are a few issues that will come up, but largely this has been an excellent process. Again, I think it took a lot to move this bill into one piece of legislation. They said it could not be done, and then they found out a way to do it, so kudos to the Minister and the Department of Lands and to our support staff, as well, on the committee end. Thank you, Mr. Chair.