Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I spoke at length yesterday to my thoughts around the royalty regime and how the Department of ITI is carrying that out and the importance of our mining sector to our economy.

First off, I like efficiency. I like to spend my time on things that are worthwhile, that we can actually do something about. To me, this bill just seems to be here to sort of poke or inflame public perception of what is our biggest economic sector at a time when it is really struggling and they have shown to be good corporate citizens during the COVID pandemic.

It is -- if this bill were to be passed, the Minister would be under actually no obligation to share any further information than she already does and I would guess, given the confidentiality of sharing private company's financial statements with anyone, she's likely not to exercise her rights under this bill to share that information with us, which kind of makes me think this bill is irrelevant and pointless.

It is targeting a sector that is only one of our industries and only one sector that pays royalties to the Northwest Territories. There are other sectors that are not being included in this bill, including quarrying. If we're going to start asking that we get private information from private companies, then why aren't we doing that across the board to everybody that pays to the Northwest Territories? Instead, we are unfairly targeting one sector.

I do agree, there is a lot of mistrust and a lot of disagreement in this area; however, I think that pushing more bills towards forcing mining companies to do things and industry to do things is not a great way to start off the conversation, as Member Johnson stated. I think there's a lot of work that's going to be done and is being planned to be done by the Department of ITI, and to start off with doing this prematurely will get us off on the wrong foot. I will not support this bill. I think it is pointless. Thank you.