Thanks, Madam Chair. I just would like to thank my colleagues that serve on the committee and the City of Yellowknife that made a written submission. This was an interesting issue that we had to deal with. GNWT was worried about incurring liability for winter roads that were being built off of our roads. We were told that this was an easy fix. We started to deal with this, actually, in the last Assembly. We didn't get to it, so it came back again into this Assembly. Although I thought it was supposed to be an easy fix, that's not the kind of bill we actually ended up with. We ended up with a bill that was going to absolve GNWT of any liability whatsoever for almost any highway, which was overkill, in my view.
It took a lot of effort on the part of the committee to work with the Minister to try to change the way that the bill read so that there was a more even balance of the rights of the government to try to protect themselves from liability but the rights of drivers to actually sue GNWT if highways are not maintained to certain standards. It took a long time to work with the Minister on this. That's why we had to get the extension, but I think we arrived at a good place. I also recognize that the Minister did commit to post a manual on the Infrastructure website that laid out and made more explicit and public standards for care and maintenance of our highways so that information is now public. All of this to say, Madam Chair, that committee had to work very hard on what I thought was an easy issue. We did fix a bill that needed a lot of work. I want to thank the Minister for working with us to get it right. Thanks, Madam Chair.