Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. First off, I guess this is one of the few times a Private Member's bill has actually come forward for consideration in Committee of the Whole, and so it is a historic event. And I think that Members, certainly on this side of the House, should consider and use Private Members' bills more often. There are some things that Cabinet is never going to get to, some things that they will not do, and that's why we have a consensus government so that Members on this side of the House can sometimes bring forward legislative initiatives, and that's the importance of Private Members' bills. So I guess I'm speaking a little bit from experience because I did have a Private Member's bill passed in the last Assembly, so -- and that was actually after encouragement from a couple of Members of Cabinet.
In any event, I do want to commend sincerely the initiative and work of the Member for Yellowknife North in bringing this forward as a Private Member's bill. In my view, what this bill really does is fix some of the problems with the Ombud Act that was -- some of these issues were identified in the last Assembly. The Minister who just spoke was actually on this side of the House and voted in favour of some of those amendments to try to fix the bill at that point. So it's kind of interesting to hear the changing of shoes or hats in this House on some of these issues, particularly on the scope of the ability of the ombud to reach back in time. And the ombud, you know, in the very first report identified this as a problem, her ability to go back in time to get a full understanding of some of the issues and complaints that were being brought forward to her attention and really impeded her ability to conduct a full investigation. So as I said, I think this just helps fix a number of problems that were already there with the bill, some of which arose from the way it was put together and drafted in the last Assembly.
I am a bit dismayed to hear the Minister say that the Department of Justice hasn't had time to do policy analysis around this bill. It's been with us now for months. Perhaps the people at Department of Justice have too much other work to do but a bit dismayed to say that, you know, they haven't had time to look at this. Some of these issues, as I say, have been around not just for months now, for years. So a bit dismayed to hear that but I'm pleased to hear that Cabinet is going to abstain, and I anticipate that all the Members on this side of the House will support this bill because it's in keeping with issues that were identified in the last Assembly and helps meet some of the issues that have been brought forward by the ombud to help improve the ability of her office to do that very important work on behalf of all of our constituents and residents of the NWT. So I'll definitely be supporting this bill. And, again, I want to sincerely thank the Member for Yellowknife North for all his work on this bill. Thanks, Madam Chair.