Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, second by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that Bill 93, Practice of Engineering, Geoscience and Applied Science Technology Act, be read for the third time. And, Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote as well. Quyananni.
Thank you, Minister. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, indulge me for a few minutes here. I did have to speak to this bill as I have been contacted by a couple constituents, as well as an association, to express their concerns.
So the Association of Technologists out of Alberta are concerned with this bill going forward and the lack of I'm not going to say this word right autonomy. That's not the right word. But the separation for the technicians themselves from the technologists under the act.
While at this point, Mr. Speaker, it is too late to and even when we were in Committee of the Whole to change this act, I did want to speak a little bit to some of the concerns that they have and maybe perhaps give them a little bit of reassurance that this is not going to be an issue.
So, first of all, Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories population in this area cannot support two organizations. We already struggle from a volunteer perspective and to have people employed and engaged in this type of work, the industry cannot support having two separate distinct organizations.
Within the proposal or within this law, the technicians and technologists would actually be full NAPEG members. So they would be no different within the organization than any other engineer or geoscientist, geophysicist, and they would have the same voting rights. They would be able to sit on council. They could be the president. And they would be able to act and participate in any manner that any engineer or any geoscientist would be able to do so.
Unfortunately, the concerns were raised with us at the very last minute, the 11th hour, and it was too late for us to do anything with respect to the bill. However, a lot of the concerns that have been raised by my constituents and others will be fleshed out in the regulations. And the good thing about this bill, Mr. Speaker, is that nothing can go ahead without the say so of the technicians and the technologists. So they will be involved with creating the regulations for themselves. And if they don't agree to it, then it doesn't happen. So I think that should give some reassurance to those in the territory, and I believe there's 37 of them registered currently under ASET in Alberta that, you know, they are going to have a say. This isn't a matter of engineers regulating them and directing and controlling them. Really, there are too many public safety and modernization items in this act to lose it now, things like limited licenses as well as the mandatory continuing professional development.
So I just felt that it was necessary that we speak to that, that those concerns were heard. However, at this point, the good of this bill needs to happen, and I want to say that as one of the last weeks of this sitting and, as an engineer, I'm proud to be part of having this bill be modernized and brought in. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Hay River South.
Mr. Speaker oh, sorry, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Here I was wondering what the Member was doing standing. Anyways, yeah, I'm you know, I'm in support of this motion. And I guess as an engineering technologist, now I can belong to an organization actually in the Northwest Territories. And it's good to see that there's a number of other people in the same boat as well. And we can participate in the organization that with like minds and hopefully do some good. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
