Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask a couple of questions because I mean, each one of us in the room has been touched by addiction in our lives, whether it be someone close to you, someone in the family, and it's always someone you love. And for clarity, we're putting -- I just want to make sure that, you know, there's situations where things happen and people have to go back to -- we're putting a lot of onus on Indigenous governments for their -- I'd rather -- I just wonder how that's going to work because I'm just wondering, you know, where's the anonymity that is going to -- is supposed to be for the person that goes to treatment? There's a lot of times, you know, you're supposed to try and keep everything private and confidential and if we're going to have to go to an Indigenous government to get approval, if you're Indigenous, to send someone to treatment, I don't know how that's going to work. I just have a little bit of a problem with that because, you know, I have experienced this most of my life and I want to be very honest about that. It's a very thing -- it's a situation where it's very close to your heart and many times people don't understand the whole situation. And the whole situation is not -- it can't be government -- it can't be done in this way. There has to be -- there has to be better ways of doing it. And I'm just wondering -- I support the bill. I think it's a good idea that we get the funds that are -- that we've spent to clarify this but it's the -- it's what you're suggesting afterwards as a group that I have some problems with because I never really paid attention to this and -- because I'm not into a lot of social issues. I don't -- you know, I'm very much a -- my knowledge is in a different place. And sometimes, you know, I just -- I don't know, I just -- I have a lot of questions, and I just wonder how people are going to be able to get to treatment quicker. That's my number one issue right now. By giving it to an Indigenous government, does that mean it's going to be quicker or the whole town's going to know? You know, and most of our people are of Indigenous descent and many times they don't want that to happen. And so I don't know. I just want some of these questions answered. And I know that we'll have a -- hopefully -- because I can't support something that I know is not -- is not correct because I dealt with this in my family for most of my life and it's -- it's a very hurtful situation. And with that, I just -- that's it. I just wanted to make a comment. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Are there any further general comments on Bill 72? Member for Monfwi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that in many of the small communities, lately we've been seeing a lot of young people, you know, fatalities involving young peoples with -- you know, in the fatalities where it all involves alcohol, drugs, you know, the addiction issues. We have a lot of issues in small communities. And even in Yellowknife, we have issues with addiction. Living in Yellowknife compared from the 70s, 80s, 90s, it's not the same no more. It's not safe to walk downtown Yellowknife because there's all kind of other people, you know, on the street. And especially -- and the people that we see there are all Indigenous. And in our communities, in many of the small communities, it's all -- they're all Indigenous, just like what my colleague said, you know. And we do have lot of addiction issues. We have a lot of mental health issues in small communities. And we know where that problem came from and how we got there. And like I've said in the past before, that these were not an issue before. So I just wanted to ask the Minister or, you know, it's more of a comment too. If he wants to answer, that's great, that's okay with him. But what I would like to see if this money, you know -- when we get this money, what I would like to see is that for the money to be shared with the Indigenous government. Will the Minister -- will they -- you know, like can we get any commitment or anything like that to see, or what their thoughts is on this because like I said, the addiction is not going to go away any time soon unless we do something about it. And we all know someone -- in our communities, we know someone in our families. And we had -- we even have some young people that are, you know, driving under the influence of, you know -- well alcohol, but a lot of them are driving under the influence of drugs too as well. We know that. I know that they are legal, marijuana is legal but we know that there's a lot of them are doing that, driving under the influence. So I know we need to do more. And especially with drinking and driving. And there was -- there is a court case. It was yesterday. So, you know, like I mean it's not just individuals. There's the whole family. Everybody is, you know, not just the whole family, but there's friends, the community are affected by the whole process. And you guys seen or heard about what happened in my region, one in another small community that just recently happened and another that happened in May and another one that happened in 2021. The court case, you know, just finished yesterday. So I just wish that this government would do more to help our people. And with this, with this opioid -- with this money, I would like the government to share this with the Indigenous governments so they can deal with their problems, with the issues that's affecting them in the small communities, in the regions. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Justice.

Thank you. So I cannot commit to spending money that won't come to the Government of the Northwest Territories any time soon. I expect this to be years away if we get any type of money. And who knows what the landscape will look like by then. Perhaps Indigenous governments will be delivering health services themselves so it might be a different discussion. But the idea of this legislation is to allow us to participate in a class action lawsuit open to federal, territorial, and provincial governments. I don't think there's anything stopping Indigenous governments from starting filing their own class action lawsuit. You know, municipalities probably want to be included in this conversation too. They have a lot of expenses related to, you know, the first responders that they hire. So the costs go well beyond health care costs. I think we all know that the cost of opioid addiction in particular, because that's what this is about, go well beyond what the Government of the Northwest Territories incurs. And so we could sit here all day and have a wide range of conversations, but that is beyond the scope of this bill here. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Are there any further -- Member for Monfwi, did you -- oh, you have --

Well, if we had the resources, I'm sure the Indigenous government would do -- you know, will do their own class actions. But in many of the small communities, we don't have the resources. And even the Auditor General in the 2016 report said that a lot of community governments are underfunded. So we don't have resources. So that's why we're -- I'm saying that if this goes through, if the money, you know -- if they get the money, then I would like to see that money being shared with the Indigenous government. So he can help us not just keep it in Yellowknife -- or with the GNWT. You know, and I know that there are others -- I would like to -- for the Cabinet to share what they're saying there. I know they're yapping over there and they're saying things, but I would like -- you know, it would be nice if that Cabinet would listen to us and work with us and work with the Indigenous government. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. What was going on over in Cabinet was just something other than this topic and so it wasn't had to do with this conversation, so. If there's any other further questions, your time has expired for this Member and I'm going to move on to Member for Kam Lake.

Yeah, thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, just listening to the questions and comments that are happening today and I mean, the Member for Frame Lake just spent ten minutes kind of, I believe, getting to this question. And so I am wondering if we can just kind of get on the record whether or not the Minister will commit to working with the GNWT to establish a mechanism for Indigenous governments to track and recruit and report approved opioid damage costs and expenses as defined under "health care benefits" in Bill 72? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you. Not at this time. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

That was my only question. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any further questions from any Members that haven't spoken to Bill 72? Seeing none, is committee agreed that there are no further general comments?

Can we proceed to a clause by clause review of the bill?

Committee, we will defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses. Please turn to page 1 of the bill.

Clauses 1 to 5, does committee agree?

Clauses 6 to 10, does committee agree?

Clauses 11 to 13, does committee agree?

Clause schedule, does committee agree?