Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Nakimayak. To the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next on the list, we have Ms. Green, then Mr. Vanthuyne. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Like many of the Members, it was great to visit the communities and hear the communities' concerns on the bill. For many of the communities that we visited, the residents, this is the first time they heard that legalization was going to be pushed forward for July 1st, was the date we are given, possibly as early as June 21st, but the date we were given was July 1st.

Many residents were asking us, why are you forcing this upon us, like it was committee that was bringing this forward, and we had to make it quite clear that this is a direction that was given to the Department...

The fund that the Minister is talking about is in the neighbourhood of $30,000 per community. There is not very much fire smarting you could do for that amount. Maybe a couple of weeks of work or a month at the most, but Mr. Speaker, I will just leave that there and find another route to that. I will ask the Minister a different question. Are there plans to encourage people to pick mushrooms in my riding where we had a large fire last year, like they did here in Yellowknife? They did a lot of promotion in this area for mushroom pickers. Will that be done in my riding as well?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a follow-up to my Member's statement; I am hoping the Minister heard parts of it. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier in my statement, we had a large fire in my riding last year. We are fortunate there was no damage to any infrastructure in the community or the water plant in Fort McPherson. I would like to ask the Minister: what is ENR's plans for fire prevention in the Mackenzie Delta this year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this did come up in communities, and the big question was: who is going to pay for public education, public awareness? Also there was, I think, one or two people who actually brought up the health side of things, which we didn't really look at. They asked some good questions, like longterm impacts on our people's health and who is going to be paying that.

So our residents felt that a portion of the money that is being raised through whether it is taxes can be set aside for paying for some of this, and I'm sure it will be going to a lot of our programs, anyway...

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Next, we have Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know it came up in the communities, and it was made quite clear to us that we couldn't go back years, say a couple of years back, if somebody got charged for possession while driving or something. It made it quite clear that this starts from July 1st onwards, so I'm going to make that clear. I don't see why everybody can't support this one. As I mentioned, it came up in the communities. It wasn't quite clear how we will move forward, so I guess some work needs to be done with the federal government on how they're going to move forward on this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one thing I forgot to mention: it was really surprising that the RCMP didn't really know their role in all of this. It is really surprising. They should have been one of the first ones to know what their role is in all of this.

The other thing was: communities, especially Tsiigehtchic, one of the communities I represent, they were really concerned that more onus is going to be put on the bylaw to enforce a lot of these bylaws or rules that are set aside for the communities, like smoking in public places. The bylaws will most likely be the ones having to police this...