Thank you, Madam Chair. I would ask committee to indulge me on my opinions of statutory reviews. This was a compromise by committee. I am of the opinion we should have no statutory reviews at all.

Historically, they have been put in by Members who feel one piece of legislation is more important than another. There's about a dozen or so out of the over 280 pieces of legislation the NWT has. If you looked at that list, there is no at all argument you can make those are the most important pieces of legislation. It includes almost none of MACA's legislation, which is everything about communities and their powers. It's almost none of Finance's legislation. The Financial Administration Act, I would argue is the most important piece of legislation we have. It's none of the tax legislation. Almost none of the Department of Justice's legislation in regards to contract law establishing corporations, construction law; they don't have statutory reviews. Residential Tenancies, Employment Standards, Education Act, Human Rights don't have statutory reviews. The list goes on of extremely important acts that have become very outdated and never got a review because committees are obliged to conduct statutory reviews.

I think a much better policy would be to ask each committee to pick two pieces of legislation at the beginning of an Assembly that they think are their priority. What has resulted in many committees is we're reviewing acts that are not our priority. We -- I actually found this Wildlife Act review underwhelming. There was not a lot of urge on the parts of Indigenous governments to reopen the Wildlife Act. I think that's due to ENR's credit in that they have been working diligently on every possible matter and consulting and, you know, I think there were much higher priorities than these two acts.

So my preference would be to get rid of every single statutory review or, at the very least, we as committees should look at what currently has a statutory review and what doesn't and pick what are clearly priorities, because there is a lot of outdated legislation in this territory that has never been reviewed and never will be. But what this motion does is not that. It lines up the period.

Right now the Wildlife Act and the Species at Risk Act were at ten and seven years. The problem with fixed timelines is they often land right before an election. So you are sitting there three months before an election and you're supposed to be completing a statutory review. So it either gets rushed or it just gets put off, and we don't land on the timeline.

What we recommended is that since species at risk and wildlife are linked, to make them have the same review period and to link it to the Assembly. So every second Assembly. This way, we know when it's coming up and it doesn't land, you know, on year one or year three.

So those are my opinions on statutory reviews. I think this is a larger conversation that needs to be had with all committees. But when Ministers bring forward the suite of legislation to come, please do not include statutory reviews. When committees review the legislation to come, please do not add them. Thank you, Madam Chair.