Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing forward the bill, but the public should know that we received by email exactly one hour before this special sitting. So I really haven't had a lot of time to consider the bill, and I think it's kind of very unusual to get a bill in this manner. Of course, these are very unusual times.

I do share, I think the intent of wanting to improve emergency management, and I think that's a shared value amongst us all and if it isn't, we are not doing our jobs. But I guess I do question about whether this is the right approach.

I'm not sure that I can agree with all the points that the Member for Great Slave raised. I think at the initial part of the evacuation, things were chaotic and perhaps communications can and should be improved, but it's not my understanding of the work that's being done now with Indigenous governments. Perhaps there's some room for improvement, but I don't think that this bill would necessarily do that even in the current emergency that we're in.

I guess I also think that we need to very carefully take the necessary time to do a proper review and evaluation of what's happened in the current emergency with the evacuation orders and the response as well, and my view is that I think that would, I guess, be done probably by an independent third party. And that's in no way any criticism of any of our staff, the firefighters. They need to be a central part of whatever review takes place. But certainly the nature and -- of fire is changing as the climate is changing. It's a climate emergency, and I think where the nature of fires changed dramatically over the last few years and that needs to be part of whatever review takes place. Like my colleague from Yellowknife North, I'm not sure that it's -- it cannot happen within the lifetime of this Assembly. I think we need to be very honest. I think if we have a sitting in September, that'll be an opportunity to ask some questions, have a debate around all of this, but we're still in the midst of this emergency and I think we need to focus our time and effort on getting the work done to protect our communities, getting the -- supporting the firefighters, the contractors, the volunteers that are doing the work, and working on behalf of our constituents, many of whom have been evacuated, to make sure that their needs are met as well. So I think our time and effort would be much better spent on those areas.

I did have a look at the current legislation, and, you know, section 6(4) of the current legislation, this is where, under the direction of the Minister, the emergency management organization shall do a number of things. I will acknowledge that coordination with Indigenous governments is not mentioned in this bill, but it certainly does -- sorry, in the legislation itself, but it does speak to the issue of emergency support, the emergency management activities of local authorities. So, yeah, that could probably be fine-tuned. But I'm not convinced that doing this on the fly like this is the best way necessarily to address the issue, the problem. In fact, it may even be more desirable to better define membership in the emergency management organization and what sort of scope and breadth that it deals with in particular kinds of situations. But I'm not an expert in this area, but I think it does warrant some public debate and discussion but as part of a broader more comprehensive thoughtful review.

All that being said, Mr. Speaker, I'm prepared to have this bill go to second reading and, like my colleague from Yellowknife North, have it studied by a committee or, indeed, in the context of a broader review of, you know, the emergency and our response, but I'm not prepared to have this go to third reading today. And if unanimous consent is sought to do that, I will nay simply because I'm not convinced that this is necessarily the best approach. I'll also need more time to look at this, and I think it should be part of a much more comprehensive review of what's happening and we need, again, Mr. Speaker, to focus our efforts on supporting those that are working and putting their own lives at risk to support -- to -- sorry, protect our communities. So that's where I think our effort would be best directed. Mahsi, Monsieur le President.