R.J. Simpson

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act, to be read for the first time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know we're not supposed to get into hypotheticals here on the floor, so I'll leave that one alone. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's very complicated. So the legislation that would be required is a Police Act which is the type of legislation that would allow municipalities to set up their own police forces and things like that. So it's not a simple community safety officer piece of legislation; it's much broader.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the idea behind the envoy is to have a dedicated, proactive, and strategic link between the political offices in Ottawa and the political offices here in the Northwest Territories. That's what's often needed to get things moving. And as to whether or not the position is permanent, well nothing in politics is permanent, so I can't speak for the future of the position past this government. And even during the life of this government, we'll see things work. I think too often the government will make a decision and then stick with it whether or not it's working. I'm...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's no doubt that the focus these days is on the economy, and that's across Canada. You know, because we're facing a threat from an external actor who is really threatening our economic stability and viability of our country. So the economy is going to loom large with the role of the senior envoy. And the purpose of this role is to have a connection with Ottawa so that we can move things along. There's big projects that we can't do ourselves here in the Northwest Territories. Things like the Mackenzie Valley Highway, we'll definitely need federal support for that...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act, to be read for the first time. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: Plain Language Summary for Bill 22, Legislation Act; and, the Statement of Consistency for Bill 22, Legislation Act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, there's a lot of legislation I would love to bring forward during the life of this Assembly. The Police Act, you know, that would be one of them; you know, Sheriffs Act, I could probably go on and on and on. But we have limited resources, and we have to provide the legislation for the entire territory. The same way Ontario, Alberta, all these other jurisdictions have to provide legislation, we have to do that as well but we're a much smaller jurisdiction, so it's more difficult to deliver that amount of legislation. So for this Assembly, we have a full agenda, but future...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll have to take that on notice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, of course, I'm always here in the House to answer questions, so that's a transparency method that works across government. But the results are going to be -- or sorry, the accountability is going to be in the results. I hope to be able to show this House and show Members that, with the support of the envoy and the entire GNWT, we're actually getting things done. And so I don't have -- you know, I don't have a framework to parse out, you know, what percentage of that success is attributable to this role. But the fact is that, you know, I am here to be held to...