I would like to call the committee back to order. As agreed before the break, we will deal with Bill 15, Adoption Act. At this time I would like to invite the Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Ng, to introduce the bill.

Thank you, Minister Ng. I would now

like to invite the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, Mr. Enuaraq, or another Member of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, Mr. Roland, to make the comments of the committee on the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Social Programs reviewed Bill 15, Adoption Act at its meetings on April 21st and 22nd, and on May 26, 1998. The committee appreciates the efforts of the Minister of Health and Social Services and his officials in responding to the committee's concerns and addressing the questions and recommendations of the committee throughout the review process.

As Members are aware, Bill 15 is a redrafted version of Bill 5, Adoption Act. Bill 5 was introduced during the fourth session of the 13th Assembly as a part of the family law package of four bills. The other bills were the proposed Child and Family Services Act, Family Law Act and Children's Law Act. At that time, the standing committee conducted an extensive public review of all of the family law bills and held public meetings in eight Northwest Territories communities. Following its review, the committee presented its report on the review of the Family Law Bills to the Legislative Assembly on October 6, 1997.

In its report, the standing committee recommended the Adoption Act be redrafted to create a clear distinction between departmental and private adoptions. In addition, the committee outlined a number of other concerns that were brought to its attention during the public hearings. The government agreed to redraft the bill in accordance with the committee's recommendations, and subsequently introduced Bill 15 on February 27, 1998. The other three bills that were a part of the family law package were passed in October 1997. They have not yet been proclaimed in force.

Given the committee's previous extensive review of Bill 15, the scope of the review of Bill 5 was restricted to conducting a thorough examination of the bill to determine the nature and extent of the revisions and whether the committee's recommendations had been met. The committee mailed a stakeholder package to northerners, advising them of the background to the bill and the committee's intentions for the review. Written submissions were invited.

The committee recognized upon its initial review of Bill 15 that many of the issues raised in its Report on Family Law Bills had been resolved. Primarily, the reorganized bill will result in legislation that is clearer and easier to use. However, the committee continued to have concern with some aspects of the bill, and Members discussed these issues extensively with the Minister and his officials. As a result of these discussions, 16 motions were passed in standing committee to amend Bill 15. Some of the motions were minor technical amendments. As well, several substantive issues were addressed.

Committee Members were concerned that the bill contained no provisions addressing the question of the identification of the father of the child to be adopted. While the committee recognizes the problems associated with mandatory requirements, Members felt that the bill should acknowledge that this is crucial information that must be made available to the child if possible. As a result, a motion was passed in committee to require adoption workers to encourage a parent to identify the other parent of the child.

As the committee had recommended in its report, Bill 15 contains new provisions allowing parents to appeal decisions of the director of adoptions to vary or terminate financial assistance. The bill also contains changes to the appeal provisions in other areas of the bill relating to the approval of private non-family adoptions and applicants for departmental adoptions. These appeals would now be heard by a person or persons designated by the Minister from outside the department. The committee agrees that these changes have resulted in an improved appeal process.

However, the committee was concerned that an appeal of a change to financial support is made directly to the Minister, rather than to a designated person. In the committee's view, a review and decision by someone from outside the department would be more appropriate and would be seen to be more independent. Following discussion with the Minister, the committee was assured that as a part of the review process, the Minister would obtain the recommendations of an objective third party from outside the department before a decision is made. This is to be incorporated in the regulations made under the act.

The committee had recommended that a provision would be included in the bill to give preference to extended family members in an adoption decision, in a similar manner to section 90 of the current Child Welfare Act. During our discussions, committee Members agreed with the Minister that it would not be appropriate to create a hierarchy of preferences, but felt that the importance of extended family should at least be one of the factors for consideration within the context of a departmental adoption. As a result, the bill was amended to provide that the family or extended family relationship between the child and prospective adoptive parents would be considered when determining the best interests of the child.

The committee had raised a concern in its report that the bill does not require a preplacement report to be completed where a child is to be adopted privately outside the Northwest Territories to a family member. The bill was amended in standing committee to provide that where such an adoption is to take place, the director of adoptions will notify the Northwest Territories director of Child and Family Services, in addition to officials in the receiving jurisdiction. This will better enable any child welfare concerns to be addressed.

Committee Members extensively discussed with the Minister the issue of the placement of the child when a parent revokes his or her consent to an adoption. The committee agrees that the overriding issue is that where there are questions or disputes about the suitability of the child's placement, the child must be kept safe and there should be an avenue to apply to court. The bill was amended to ensure that a parent who consented to the adoption and did not revoke consent is promptly notified of a revocation, where possible. In those circumstances, the child will remain with the adoptive parents until an application is made to court to determine the issue.

The committee had recommended in its report that the bill include a mandatory requirement for an investigation in circumstances where a child revokes his or her consent to an adoption. While the bill contained provision allowing the court to interview the child, Members felt that this was not sufficient, in part because the matter may never proceed to court. The bill was amended in committee to provide that where a child revokes his or her consent to an adoption, a copy of the revocation will be provided to the director of Child and Family Services. The committee was assured that the revocation would be considered to be a triggering event requiring an investigation.

The bill was also amended in committee following a suggestion by the NWT Branch of the Canadian Bar Association. The bill now requires that where an application is made for a review of a refusal to approve a proposed placement, the review must be conducted within 30 days.

Mr. Chairman, committee Members may have additional comments or questions on this bill as we proceed. This concludes the standing committee's comments on Bill 15, Adoption Act. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. I will now offer Minister Ng the opportunity to bring in witnesses if he wishes. Mr. Ng.

Do we agree, the Minister may bring in witnesses?

Thank you. You may bring in the witnesses, Sergeant-at-Arms. Could I have the Minister introduce his witnesses, please, to the committee.

Thank you, Mr. Ng. Welcome to the committee. The floor is now open for general comments by Members on the bill. Mr. Erasmus.

The Minister will respond after we have heard the other general comments on the bill. I have on my list Mr. Enuaraq from Baffin Central and Mr. Evaloarjuk, in that order. Mr. Enuaraq.

Thank you, Mr. Enuaraq. I now recognize Mr. Evaloarjuk.

Thank you, Mr. Evaloarjuk. The Member for Iqaluit, Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Picco. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I too feel that at this time we should withdraw this bill and allow for a more meaningful involvement and meaningful role for the aboriginal communities. I have heard these similar concerns from my community, especially from the chief and band council. When children are taken from the community because individuals may have personal problems socially in regard to alcoholism or whatever, it should be the decision of the aboriginal community to say where these aboriginal children are going. The whole idea of custom adoption which is an aboriginal phase and process has been done for numerous years in which we are trying to deal with the whole aboriginal question at the community level and allowing the communities to have a more active role in regard to how those adoptions take place, also exactly how it affects the aboriginal organizations regardless if it is the Gwich'in, Inuvialuit, the Sahtu or whomever. There has to be a more meaningful role for the aboriginal community. We have heard from the numerous federal reports in regard to the commission on the aboriginal process which was chaired by Mr. George Erasmus. There were a lot of concerns regarding adoptions and that process. I feel there has to be more meaningful role, especially when it comes to aboriginal people and children who lose their aboriginal culture through adoptions and not knowing where they came from, whom they are related to and also what their cultural background is.

I feel, Mr. Chairman, there should be a standing down of this bill in which there should be more meaningful involvement by aboriginal communities, organizations, and exactly as to how the aboriginal child will be dealt with and also, exactly what rights do the family have as an aboriginal person who may not understand the rights they have as parents in giving up the rights of their children to the Department of Social Services or whoever may be the agency. Mr. Chairman, we should at this time withdraw this bill and allow for a meaningful discussion by the aboriginal groups and the people in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. I have the Member for Fort Smith, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is fairly obvious that at the 11th hour here, people are looking at what is being proposed and the late submission by NTI after repeated requests for their input and that there is some confusion, at least in some sections. Mr. Chairman, this bill has been worked on as one of four particular bills to update the Child Welfare Act. I can understand if there is a need to take a time out here to make sure we are all clear on a process, given the response to NTI's late submission. Mr. Chairman, there is absolutely no way at this juncture that we should be pulling this bill to put it back through another ten-year process or six month process. This Legislature does not have the time and I think we have a fundamental obligation to the children of the Northwest Territories to update our adoption laws. This does not infringe on custom adoption. There has been extensive public consultation on this bill. It is important to take the time out to look at how we are going to deal with NTI's response and possible amendments, but Mr. Chairman, there is no way that I could support having this bill pulled at the very best, bring it into the House and vote on it possibly Monday, when we get our chance to touch base on these other late-breaking events. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I will start off by complimenting the Standing Committee on Social Programs for the amount of work they put into this bill and the department. I note that on the information I have been supplied with, they have suggested amendments to the Adoption Act, which have been ongoing now for at least ten years. I can confirm that, Mr. Chairman, because I believe it was in the mid-1985, in that area I had the privilege of being on the Family Law Reform committee representing the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation for a short term and the Adoption Act, was one of the concerns at that time. This has been around for a long time. Taking that into consideration, and also taking the amount of time the committee has been involved in redrafting the act into consideration as well, you would think that all concerns would be addressed by this time. However, we must take into consideration that political jurisdictions have been changing dramatically over the last number of years. I note that the Nunavut Social Development Committee is strongly opposed to this legislation at this time. Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for the Nunavut Social Development Committee and I have great respect for the amount of work they have been doing in trying to have these types of legislation available in Nunavut. I do not believe that simply because they did not show up at the time the committees held their meetings, we should ignore the fact that they seem to have legislative input into this type of act that would have a great impact on the residents of Nunavut. We cannot ignore that fact. We also have to take into consideration that I note under self-government negotiations in the Beaufort, one of the duties and responsibilities that could be passed onto the self-government group would be the Adoption Act, and adoption authority. I do not know if this suggests that they would come out with new legislation or not, but we must take that into consideration.

There seems to be not as much objection to having the bill inactive in the western part of the territory whenever and have the amendments to it made at an appropriate time to have it taken into consideration under self-government agreements and what type of authority these agreements would give to the aboriginal groups, but I note that in Nunavut both NTI and Nunavut Social Development Committee would like to see this bill delayed until April 1, 1999. They were asking the Minister not to enact the bill until that day. I am fully in support of this because I do not see if we live with the existing bill for 15-years while it was being reviewed, another six or eight months is not going to make that much of a difference. Mr. Chairman, I will be putting forward a motion to amend the act as proposed at the appropriate time today, to suggest that this act should not come into force until April 1, 1999. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.