Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has made the case for this. I think the Premier obviously came back with great things to say about the initiative. I certainly appreciate the Member taking it on himself really to drive this walk this year and make this thing happen. We’d like to do it in future years. I am, though, of course cautious. We have a committee in place. We want to sit down in November and talk to them, do a bit of a debrief on the walk, talk about how it went and talk about priorities for the coming years. So given committee’s support, Mr. Speaker, I see no reason why we wouldn’t...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I may have missed some of the question here, but the tourism officers will be the existing tourism officers that we have in place here and the interest in their ability to act or have the responsibilities as a peace officer, that's correct, but only for the purposes of this act. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I understand that we can't process a licence unless we have the consent of the Inuvialuit organizations on ISR lands. So I think that's the insurance that the Member has, that we will consult and, obviously, it's critical. It doesn't happen without it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for the question. There’s a lot of work underway in this regard to make the Dodo Canol Park Trail more of a regional focal point. I think we’re doing some good work. We’ve struck a committee with the help of the Member, who really reinvigorated efforts in this regard locally. There’s a lot of interest now in getting this park created. We have our next meeting, I believe, in November with the committee. They will be talking about this summer’s walk on the trail that both the Premier and the Member participated in. I think it raised a lot of attention...

Mr. Chairman, clearly, on new licences in regions where we have settled claims, yes. It's not this Tourism Act that would direct something like an access and benefit agreement, it's the claim, it's the legislation. Where we're dealing with existing operators, what I can offer to do is to bring the operators together with the communities to have a discussion of this nature. I think it's important and I do think the operators want to involve the communities. As I say, that's just good business. So we can facilitate that kind of activity. But for sure, there is the legal requirement to do...

Mr. Chairman, this is a concern that came up during committee and I think the discussion that we had there was good. I appreciate the thoughts of committee in this respect. I think that the first point to make is if there are significant community concerns with an operator, we would take that into account before issuing any sort of renewal. So it is complaint-based. If the community or the region has concerns, they should bring them to our attention so we can address those before we consider a renewal.

Another issue that was raised was about whether or not an operator was up to date with...

I will certainly provide the data we have on what the industry is worth and we can give some examples of that. In the end, how much money stays in the region is hard for us to quantify at times, but we do have some data and I will provide that to the Member. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There currently are time frames for stakeholders to apply in the consultation section. We are looking for it here, in the current act, and those have been repeated in the new act as well. I would say that those are in the act and they are there and they will be followed, but we are going to work with would-be operators. If we have a good sense -- and we have regional people throughout the territory -- that the whole region is going to rise up against an operator, we are not going to waste their time putting them through the hoops and dealing strictly with these time...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 69(2) and have Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Jury Act, moved into Committee of the Whole. Thank you.