Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its Report on the Review of Bill 12: Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act, and commends it to the House.

Introduction

The Standing Committee on Government Operations – “the Standing Committee” – is pleased to report on its review of Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act.

Bill 12, sponsored by the Department of Finance, sets out the legislative framework for the continuation of the Northern Employee Benefits Services, NEBS, Pension Plan as a multi-employer, multi-jurisdictional pension plan for employees of

approved public sector employers in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Bill 12 received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on February 27, 2014, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review.

Background

NEBS has been in existence since 1979 and was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1999. At that time the plan was regulated under the federal Pension Benefits Standards Act, PBSA. In 2004 the federal office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, OSFI, determined that the NEBS Pension Plan no longer qualified for regulation under federal legislation. This decision meant that member pension contributions were no longer protected from creditors and locking-in provisions and plan portability outside the Northwest Territories and Nunavut were lost. Additionally, while the NEBS Board of Directors continued to govern the NEBS Pension Plan in voluntary compliance with the PBSA, they no longer had the legislative authority to govern and manage the plan with certainty.

In 2009 the GNWT enacted the Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act, as did Nunavut, which provides protection from creditors for member contributions. However, this still left NEBS conducting business in the absence of a legislative foundation. Bill 12 represents the collective efforts of the Government of the Northwest Territories’ Department of Finance and the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Community and Government Services, working in collaboration with NEBS, to resolve that problem.

The multi-jurisdictional nature of the proposed legislation governing NEBS has presented unique challenges related to the development and review of Bill 12. It has created a situation in which two distinct, sovereign Legislatures are simultaneously considering amendments to two separate, but virtually identical, pieces of legislation governing a single body that conducts business in both jurisdictions. Therefore, at the same time that the Standing Committee on Government Operations has been considering Bill 12, our counterpart in Nunavut, the Standing Committee on Legislation of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut, has been considering Bill 1.

While the circumstances that have given rise to two different Legislatures in two independently- governed jurisdictions considering “mirrored” legislation are unusual, they are not without precedent. The last time this situation occurred was in 2007, when both Nunavut and the Northwest Territories considered a new Workers’ Compensation Act. Passage of this act allowed both jurisdictions to continue to share a single Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission

and to enjoy the economies of scale that come with doing so. It is in this same vein that the NEBS Pension Plan Act has been developed and is being considered, to allow employers and workers in both jurisdictions to participate in a single pension plan.

Given the complexity of the bill, and the high degree of collaboration required between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories to facilitate concurrent reviews of Bill 1 and Bill 12, respectively, both committees determined that additional time would be required to complete their reviews. Consequently, consistent with each Legislature’s own rules, each standing committee sought to extend the review period for its respective bill by an additional 120 days. On October 27, 2014, the Government of Nunavut passed Motion 012-4(2): Extension of Review Period for Bill 1, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act. On October

29, 2014, the chair of the Standing

Committee on Government Operations, in accordance with Rule 70(1) of the Rules of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, requested in the House, under reports of committees on the review of bills, an extension by 120 days to the period of time allowed for the standing committee’s review of Bill 12.

The committee wishes to take this opportunity to thank their counterparts and officials in Nunavut for their timely cooperation and spirit of collaboration which contributed to the successful review of this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, through you, I’ll ask Ms. Bisaro to continue with the report. Mahsi.