Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to my right, I have Mr. Terence Courtoreille, Director of Management Board Services; and to my left, I have Mr. Mike Reddy, legislative counsel, Department of Justice. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here to present Bill 7, Chartered Professional Accountants Act.

For over a decade, the three national accounting bodies, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada, and the Certified Management Accountants of Canada, had discussed the possibility of merging their respective organizations into one comprehensive national accounting body.

In January 2013, a national unification framework was agreed to by the thr ee Canadian accounting bodies to create a new national body, Chartered Professional Accountants...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise Members that the Premier will be absent from the House today to attend the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize a couple of Pages in the Assembly from Inuvik. We have Amber Lennie-Ipana and we have Kyra Buckle, who are both from Inuvik. I would like to thank them for the work they do, plus all the Pages for the work they do, looking after the Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, cannabis is not new in the NWT. Legalized cannabis, though, is a controlled substance that is currently being distributed through liquor stores, as the Member pointed out, and federal requirements mean that it will be tracked from the seed-to-sale manner, and that has to be considered in our approach. I do not believe that legalization will add to illegal activities. We can use the liquor as a model. Even though liquor sales are legal, there is an illegal market that continues to exist. I think early indications are, and I can share some numbers, as of noon...

Mr. Speaker, I apologized to the Member on his question on the report. I will continue to give committee an update as we move forward, making it part of the overall report. I mean, as we unroll this, we can see how we can provide all the information to committee that's required.

As far as the monitoring, I believe I made a commitment to committee that I would keep them up to date as we go into the legalization of cannabis. We can have regular updates, if it's committee's wish. We do plan on preparing a report. It will be in the life of this Assembly, obviously. Whether it's after a year after...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it was not Cabinet, it was the Minister of Finance, and I wanted to ensure we had a plan that was going to be right. I do apologize to committee. I did make the commitment that we would have that before implementation day; obviously, I missed that. So it's on me, but I will provide the plan to committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member is correct. I did make a commitment to provide an implementation plan. My understanding is that we should have that in committee's hands Monday at the latest.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the 12 hours that cannabis has been legal, there was some concern about the price. The difficult question to answer is: how will it affect the illegal market? Maybe we'll send out a questionnaire and ask if it has affected the illegal market's bottom line, with the legalization of cannabis.

We will monitor it. We're 12 hours into the legalization. We will monitor it, and even the early indications with folks lining up at the stores and the online sales that we've had, that obviously has put a dent into the illegal market, but we will continue to monitor...

That is exactly what we are trying to do. Thank you.