The Chair Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know that the reason that this recommendation is here is because, in my opening remarks, I talked about how different departments had different approaches to the co-development of legislation. I am not trying to pick on anybody, but it is on the public record that the Department of Lands did not use a co-drafting process for a variety of reasons, which seemed to point to the lack of capacity of the Indigenous governments to deal with that bill, in addition to all of the other bills that were brought forward by Cabinet.

It would have been helpful for committee to know that before the bill arrived in the House. Committee didn't know that. We had to go and dig it out. I think that this is just in keeping with what should be a principle of consensus government, no surprises, that committee is advised when a bill skips through the co-development process. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

The Chair Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. To the motion.

The Chair Frederick Blake Jr.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Vanthuyne.

The Chair Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Largely what this is about is having some more committee involvement in the earlier processes so that, when the job of doing the actual review of committee, when we take these kinds of bills out on the road, we have a better understanding of how we got that far in the process.

What we discovered often, when we were out there on the road, was that we were hearing from folks where they were expecting, maybe, some degree of clarification from us, where we had little or no information in many instances to be able to inform them.

We feel that there are many circumstances where earlier collaboration and better communication between ourselves and the Minister, and potentially the technical working group, would have been a much more streamlined line of communication between ourselves. We could have avoided a lot of concerns, and we could have been better prepared to answer a number of people's questions as we went through the process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Next, we have Mr. O'Reilly.

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have been thinking a lot about this, and clearly, there needs to be a division between the legislative branch and the executive branches of government. That is how democracies are supposed to work. Someone is supposed to hold the pen, and somebody else is supposed to take it and conduct a review of it.

These are very significant matters with a lot of public interest. A lot of time and effort went into the development of these bills. Through our process here in consensus government, standing committees get legislative proposes that outline general subject matter so that we can try to work together, or at least understand what is coming through. Some of these were very large, complex pieces of legislation, and I think that it was very difficult for committee to understand the policy discussion and policy decisions that had gone into the drafting and the bill as it arrived on our desk for review.

Much earlier in the process, when committee had raised some concerns and issue about some of the bills that came through, the kinds of responses that we got weren't very helpful. Things like, "Well, we'll take it to the technical working group," or "We'll take it to the Indigenous governments to see what they think." That's great, but I want to know what the Cabinet position is. What is Cabinet going to take to the table in discussing and negotiating this, and should Regular MLAs or the standing committees actually have any kind of role in that or, at least, an understanding of what some of those issues are, how they played out, and how decisions were arrived at? I am still grappling with how we can do that.

The best thought that committee could come up with is that Ministers and standing committee need to sit down and talk about this before things get completely off the rails. I think that what happened last night is an example of when things do go off the rails.

This is an effort to try to ensure that committees are kept at least informed of what is going on and are in a better position to help review the bill and provide constructive feedback and so on. That probably needs to be worked out, maybe, on a case-by-case basis. I think that it worked better with some of the bills than others, and I think that this is an effort to suggest that, if there's an understanding at the beginning of the process, that is going to be better for everybody. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

The Chair Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. To the motion.

The Chair Frederick Blake Jr.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Vanthuyne.

Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that, should any portion of a bill require federal concurrence, a statement to this effect be included in the legislative proposal; and further, that the relevant clauses be identified at the time of introduction to the appropriate standing committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.