Mr. Speaker, I would like to add comment to my colleague's comments and those of this morning.
This bill responds to calls from the territorial government, aboriginal groups, and industry to provide northerners with greater control over their lands and resources and to improve regulatory processes across the north. Bill C-15 is a necessary step to implement devolution of management of lands and resources for the Northwest Territories and has a target effective date of April 2014 in the action plan to improve northern regulatory regimes.
Aspects of the amendments to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act are required to implement devolution, thus making it necessary for this legislation to be considered together as one. In order for regulatory improvement initiatives to be fully implemented, all parties of the devolution agreement agreed that it was desirable to have this piece of legislation remain federal at this time and to utilize delegation as a model to implement devolution, with a full review of this model after five years.
I hope this clarifies the situation.