Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion is of importance to the people of the Northwest Territories. I did intend to make some brief remarks this morning. I'm not entering, obviously, into any sort of a question period. But there has been a process by which the House would follow to keep committees apprised of their work and respond to correspondence from committee relating to any uncertainties about what was proposed.

But for the sake of the public, Mr. Speaker, on April 7th of 2022, Canada announced the implementation of a federal vaping products excised tax that would be effective in October of that year, of last year. And provincial and territorial governments were invited to join a coordinating vaping products tax regime. That would then apply an additional duty on vaping products for those participating jurisdictions. It's that which we are now looking to participate in. And under this approach, Canada is responsible for administering the collection of the tax, which comes at no additional cost to the Northwest Territories. But it does also then share some of those revenues with the Government of the Northwest Territories. More specifically, we're expecting right now based on a current projections and current sales that it's somewhere in and around $500,000, but obviously -- ideally, Mr. Speaker, it would be less because ideally there's less products being sold.

And on that, just a couple final notes, Mr. Speaker. We are hopeful that the additional tax and the fact that it's -- it's enhanced by participating in this regime will, in fact, discourage the use of vaping products and, particularly for youth, they would hopefully be even more sensitive to an increase in the prices of these products. It's certainly is something that is of concern. It's concerning to the Government of the Northwest Territories, and that is one particular reason we would want to participate in Canada's regime. Again, I would note this was supported by Canadian Cancer Society and certainly we do look forward to ongoing efforts by the federal government, by our own department of health, and by nonprofit organizations to discourage the use of vaping. And hopefully this is one more tool in that toolbox. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.