Thank you, Madam Chair. The Samara Centre for Democracy is a non-partisan think tank that is based in Ottawa, and it conducts research on strengthening democracy in Canada. Last week, the Samara Centre issued a report on how provincial and territorial legislatures are adapting their work to the pandemic, and a key finding of theirs is that, "despite the rapid emergence of virtual parliaments throughout the world, few provincial and territorial legislatures have looked to technology to keep up with parliamentary business. Just three out of 13 legislatures in Canada have held virtual committee meetings, and only BC and Newfoundland and Labrador have authorized virtual sittings." The finding leads to a recommendation by the Samara Centre that virtual platforms should be embraced to enable legislative activity, and not only that, but participation by all Members, not just those who are in physical proximity to the Legislative Assembly building.

I bring this to your attention because I took part in a virtual news conference about this report and specifically talked about how the NWT has adapted. It's my analysis that we are well ahead here, by having virtual sittings of our standing committees since April. Videoconferencing has enabled us to speak to one another, if not to see one another. We have some people who are still only on phone access. As a matter of fact, as an aside, it has highlighted bandwidth issues in a number of communities, including Yellowknife, where people have struggled to stay online. All the same, we've made that effort. We've tried different platforms, and we are now able to include everyone in our standing committee meetings who wants to be there.

When we were discussing whether to return to this House in person, as a select few, or not at all, many of the Members were interested in a virtual sitting. I wasn't, especially, because of our technology issues, our bandwidth issues, but I do think that it's very important to set the legislative stage for this to happen when we get the digital issues resolved. I feel that we are well ahead with this piece of legislation, and I support it. Thank you.