Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Liquor regulations are a regulation entirely within the department of finance and typically wouldn't necessarily be the subject of significant -- certainly not consultation as a legal concept but engagement, more generally. What we did do in this case, Mr. Speaker, is that certainly, at the same time that this was happening, there was a liquor-related motion by the Dene Nation that was made and a fairly lengthy response provided to them on April 7^th. I was involved in an Indigenous governments' call that has been happening weekly now with the governments during the pandemic on April 9^th to discuss the decision around closing of liquor stores. Then on April 15^th, when the letter went out, that went out only after I would had that length conversation with the Indigenous governments and had received also correspondence from them. At that time, I sent a detailed letter to them to explain what was done. While that was the liquor changes that were made on April 16th that the Member makes mention of, they are regulations. They are changeable.

We got back on the phone and had another long conversation with the Indigenous governments on April 17^th. On April 23^rd, I had written to the Indigenous governments again, seeking their input on the changes to date and then some further changes that, again, a number of parties were requesting. On April 24^th, I again went on to the Indigenous governments' call and had a lengthy discussion with them. At that point, set up a targeted call on April 28^th, specifically with the Department of Finance to have a lengthy conversation with them around how the liquor regulations were working and whether further changes needed to be made. That is the one part of the question, Mr. Speaker. The second was on how the amounts were chosen. There was a real balance being struck between the desire to put some regulations that would create a restriction in place to try to target bootleggers, to try to target those who were buying mickeys, those who were buying large amounts and then taking them back to smaller communities, in particular, for resale, but also not to create a barrier that would hamper the health system by driving people to consume other types of alcohol. We looked at the kinds of consumption patterns that we could see, and we looked at who was being impacted and who was being targeted, and tried to target those who were seemingly purchasing for improper purposes, and not target the large proportion of individuals who can consume responsibly.