Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for his kind remarks with regard to our working relationship.
Sadly, I was not in Yellowknife because I was fogged in on Vancouver Island. However, I have reviewed the testimony and the briefing notes from those days.
The problem with this piece of legislation is that two pieces of legislation have been combined into one. They should never have been brought together. Some minor changes may be required to the Northwest Territories devolution, but it is broadly supported. Then we have a wholesale change being proposed to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which is not broadly supported. This change has not had the kind of consultative process that should have been put in place for a process that would impact self-government and land claims agreements. If regulatory changes are required, they should have been done through a broad consultative process.
Our leader is absolutely correct when he talked about the fact that Northwest Territories devolution is being held hostage to regulatory management. Our understanding is that people were told that if they wanted devolution to happen now, they would have to accept these regulatory changes. That does not seem like a fair and honourable way to bring forward significant changes to the territory.