Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am pleased to speak to Bill 72, Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act in my capacity as chair of social development.

This bill allows for the Government of the Northwest Territories to participate in a class action lawsuit filed by the government of BC to allow the GNWT to recover health care expenses incurred from opioid damages. Committee supports this legislation.

During standing committee's review of Bill 72, committee heard from Indigenous governments and community stakeholders. Committee heard that at the time BC filed the class action lawsuit, the NWT was experiencing the fourth highest rate of opioid-related death and hospitalizations in the country. Committee recognizes that communities and Indigenous governments respond to the needs of their residents by providing frontline response. Whether it's through counselling, costs for addictions treatment, or other programs and services, communities in the NWT bare a cost for opioid addictions. Committee also recognizes that this bill is limited in scope to allow the GNWT to participate in the class action lawsuit with other Canadian jurisdictions. The strength of class action lawsuits is that interests of all participating jurisdictions align so we want to acknowledge that it was important to keep the bill the same as other jurisdictions. To respond effectively to the impacts from opioid addictions, committee encourages the GNWT to work with Indigenous governments to begin tracking the full cost of responding to the opioid crisis. Committee also encourages the GNWT to allocate any future revenues received from the class action lawsuit to be distributed among Indigenous governments in their response to this national crisis.

Madam Chair, I just wanted to make a couple of comments here. Within committee's review, they did look at some of the definitions to see that although the scope of the bill was narrow and needed to be narrow to allow us to align with other jurisdictions, we did think it was really important to acknowledge the expenses that Indigenous governments specifically are incurring for costs that are recognized under the definitions here.

On page 1 of the bill, under the definition for health care benefits, while (a) refers to insured services as defined in subsection 1(1) of the Hospital Insurance and Health and Social Services Administration Act, (b) speaks to benefits and insured services, both as defined in section 1 of the Medical Care Act; and (c) -- this is the one that was of interest to committee -- speaks to other expenditures made directly or through one or more agents or other intermediate bodies by the Government of the Northwest Territories for programs, services, benefits, or similar matters associated with opioid-related disease, injury, or illness.

Madam Chair, it's really important to be specific here that committee is not asking for additional social costs to be covered by this bill. But the costs that the GNWT is prepared to capture and bring back to the territory through this suit, there are other entities that are incurring the same types of costs, for example treatment through Indigenous governments, and it's really important to committee that these expenses are captured and that revenue for current and future costs can be shared with Indigenous governments. So thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank you to my colleagues for hearing me out on that one.

This concludes my marks on Bill 72, and my colleagues may have additional questions or comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.