Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So way back when devolution occurred in the last Assembly, actually Assembly before that, the Department of Lands was created and the organizational structure of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources was changed. Some functions, in particular related to water, came to ENR, and others went to ENR, to Lands.

There was a commitment at the time to devolve and then evolve if needed after time was passed.

Since then, it became clear that there's a -- well, I'm missing a step.

First of all, there was a -- in my speech from -- to be Premier, Mr. Speaker, I said that I'd be looking at the Lands department and seeing if I could combine it with another department. I found in the last government that smaller departments often sometimes don't get the attention they needed because of the size of the departments and it's also a lot of departments for ministers. So there was a benefit to reorganization.

But when we did that work, we actually found that the department that I thought might be closer related was the wrong one. So it was clear that there was a closer intersection of some of the work with Lands and ENR.

I know that Members here have brought that up that inspections in contaminated sites, for example, that's how there's overlaps, securities in project assessments or others. So several concerns were also brought forward by the public and Indigenous governments and organizations regarding the confusion of what roles and responsibilities between the departments. The government renewal initiative to date identified close significant intersections between ENR and Lands.

So when we started this government, and the Members were provided a copy I believe, I had asked Minister Thompson to review the Lands and MACA organizational structure in this mandate letter. And I do believe Members were given a copy of the mandate letters. If not, let me know. If they're public I can give them to you.

And the Minister, in his work, decided that he wanted to include ENR as well to meet the commitment that was made at devolution.

As well, another MLA raised an oral question in this House in December of 2021 asking if we'd started the work. And I responded that it was underway and could be actioned in the life of the government.

So we did a jurisdictional scan of functions at Lands, MACA, and ENR across Canada, and after review, we decided that we actually had a private contractor do this work, and they -- the contractor developed four potential options that were reviewed by the deputy ministers, committee of Cabinet, and Cabinet.

The design process, when we bring it together, would be a collaborative process involving senior managers from both departments to ensure that we get it right. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.