Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the minister for being here this morning.
I also want to thank him for his, I guess I'd call it, oblique acknowledgement that the NDP has supported reasonable changes, in his reference to our late leader's position on part of this bill. But, as usual, the bill seems to take off from what might be described as a reasonable position and goes to some very strange positions.
He's always talking about hunters and fishers in rural and remote areas, and so I want to ask him why the government is eliminating the ability to challenge the test. In lots of rural and northern areas having to do a course is a problem, because these are not offered within a reasonable distance or in reasonable time frames. The existing legislation allowed people who already had the skills to challenge the test, to demonstrate that they had the necessary knowledge. It's very difficult for me to understand, when the government says it's committed to not having unnecessary red tape for rural, northern, and remote communities, why the challenge is being eliminated.