The federal Minister has a role to play as a responsible Minister, as well, under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. The federal Minister is part of the decision-making process and you have to achieve consensus amongst the responsible Ministers to have a position going forward for final recommendations that are made to the board. Right now the federal government coordinates that consensus, including the territorial Minister in that process. In the future we are going to be coordinating with the feds, so we will take more of a leadership role, rather than them coordinating us, but a lot isn’t changing in that regard. We are not issuing the permits because the board still does.
Debates of March 3rd, 2014
This is page numbers 4075 – 4134 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going.
Topics
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
So I assume that the federal Minister wouldn’t play a role in the water licences and other examples that the Deputy Minister used here, a land use permit in the ISR and so on.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
Sorry, can you repeat the question about the water licence?
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
There were three examples that the deputy minister used, land use permit in the ISR, a water licence, which would be determined by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I just wanted to know if any federal Ministers would play any role there.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
Not in the examples that I gave. We would be the final decision-maker on the issuance of the land use permit in the ISR, for example.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, my last question here. Who would be coordinating? Would there be one coordinating federal Minister in the areas where there was a federal role, for example, DFO on environment and AANDC? Would AANDC be coordinating that or would our Lands Minister, as an authority, play a role of coordinating federal departments separately? Thank you.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
Previously the coordination role was done by AANDC and headquarters, but with the devolved responsibility, CanNor is going to be taking over that responsibility on behalf of the federal government.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, this is an unexpected player at the table now. I hadn’t heard about this one. So, CanNor is the one that will be working with our Minister of Lands on decision-making. Is that correct? Who is the Minister for CanNor? Thank you.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
Leona Aglukkaq is the head of CanNor, the president of CanNor, and as far as coordinating with the federal government, it would be us coordinating with them in feeding into the environmental assessment process which is done by the boards under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, so we would work with them to bring a consensus amongst the responsible Ministers, feeding into the board. All responsible Ministers, federal or territorial.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
I appreciate the information here and the tolerance of my colleagues’ new department. I am just trying to get my understanding right here.
Just finally, is this only for lands that we are taking over and Commissioner’s land? Any federal land that is left over, there would be a difference; we would not be having the same authorities and so on. Is my understanding correct there? Thank you.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
The authority of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the boards are for all lands, federal or territorial, so how we
feed into the process is changing with us taking more of a leadership role and feeding into that process post April 1, but it would include projects that were potentially on federal lands, because the boards still have the authority over those lands as well.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have to follow up on Mr. Bromley’s questions. I got a little confused with the number of Ministers and who is responsible and who is leading and not, and so on. I accept that we will now be the “person” who is at the top and pulling other people in and doing the coordinating, but we have got Fisheries and Oceans at the federal level, we have got AANDC and I forget the third one, and now we have CanNor and the Minister for CanNor, so I am trying to understand how CanNor fits into this equation. Do we now have four federal Ministers that GNWT and the Minister of Lands has to coordinate with, or is it one or is it just three?
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe what CanNor is trying to do is coordinate the federal family for us so that we only have to deal with the one point of contact for federal input into the process. Rather than the GNWT going out and trying to build consensus amongst federal Ministers, whether it is a fisheries Minister, and environment Minister or AANDC Minister, that would be done by CanNor and they would then bring that forward to us so that we would have a consensus approach being brought forward by Canada.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
Mr. Chairman, thanks to the deputy minister. I kind of went, hmm, I guess we will have to just wait see how it works. Thank you.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Robert Bouchard
Thank you, I will take that as a comment. General comments. Committee, we will move to detail. We’ll go to page 14-7, department summary, lands, operations expenditure summary, $26.830 million, we’ll defer this until activity details and information items have been considered. Page 14-8, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Questions?
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m trying to understand some of the numbers on this page and since they’re new there’s not a lot of information that we have to give us any background. So two questions on this page. Regulatory revenues, I’m
comparing it to what was in MACA previously and this is up, I think, maybe $20,000 or so, from what was in the general revenue, regulatory revenues in MACA. So with this one, I guess, I would like to know where these revenues come from, what fees and charges make up this $67,000 and the other question has to do with the lease amount, the lease amount is about $2.4 million. The lease amount in MACA in ’13-14 is only about $700,000. So why the big increase in land lease fees, or in lease fees I guess I should say? Thank you.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Warren
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The $67,000, the increase is associated with an estimate of the land use fees that would be received from taking over responsibility for federal Crown lands and then the substantive increase in the lease revenues would be associated with the Territorial land leases, approximately $1.6 million additional coming in from the federal government for the leases on federal lands.
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Committee Motion 20-17(5): Conclusion Of Transportation Department Summary, Carried
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I had a similar question on the lease. It seems like it did in the land quantum that we’re talking about here, the previously federal land coming over. I think last year our lease revenue was $700,000 from MACA and so that’s been transferred over, it’s $7,000 and now we’re talking about $1.3 million from the federal government, but given the land quantum difference between Commissioner’s land and the federal land, that seems like a small amount. Any explanation for that? Thank you.