Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 46, Public Land Act, be read for the third time; and, Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. The Member has requested a recorded vote. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I know this has been a long night, but I do owe it to my constituents to tell them where I stand on this bill. This is one of the few pieces of post-devolution legislation that was not co-drafted. We established that for the record here earlier in this House. I believe that this bill was too rushed. It was not what was promised. There were to be sets of amendments for administrative purposes to the Commissioner's Land Act and the Northwest Territories Land Act, and we ended up with a bill that merged the two systems.
The most egregious part of the bill, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion is that it rolls back mandatory financial security for commercial and industrial land uses. That provision has been in place since 2011 in the Commissioner's Land Act. The Minister could not provide any evidence whatsoever that this has created a problem or issue, and I would have thought that the lessons learned from the Giant Mine a few kilometres down the road would dictate that we continue to keep that sort of provision in place.
Now, I've spent probably 25 years of my life trying to fix up the mess that's down the road, and I don't think this bill is going to make it any better. In fact, it rolls back protections that we already have in place for the environment and our taxpayers, so I will not support the bill. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. To the motion.
Question.
