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

---Carried

Thank you, Minister, and thank you to the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, you may escort the witnesses from the Chamber. We will take a short, five-minute.

---SHORT RECESS

I will now call Committee of the Whole to order. Committee, we have agreed to consider Bill 6, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act. I will ask the Member for Yellowknife North, the sponsor of the bill, to introduce it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Although this is a short piece of legislation, it is very much a historic legislation. I am pleased to provide opening comments on Bill 6, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act. Madam Chair, this bill will provide the Legislative Assembly authority to conduct all or a portion of our sittings by way of virtual means. The test for that will be in the hands of the Speaker, and we will sit virtually in exceptional circumstances.

Madam Chair, this bill was drafted in response to efforts to avoid face-to-face meetings of this House in a global pandemic, but its purpose is not limited to the current situation. Any number of natural disasters, travel restrictions, or territory-wide health and safety concerns could consider its use in the future. I want to say, for the record, that this legislation is not intended to provide Members with a convenient way to attend sessions of this House by virtual or remote means under normal circumstances. The default should always be that we attend our business in person, in this place, and in a public forum. The intention here is to provide the Speaker with another tool to ensure that the work of this place, including the passage of legislation, the approval of budgets, and the holding of the government to account, can continue, even under extraordinary circumstances. Madam Chair, this bill is about continuity of government in a time of crisis.

This bill authorizes a Member or a group of Members, with the Speaker's advance authorization, to participate in all or a portion of a session by way of a conference call or a video conference. The Member participating in this fashion is included in the calculation of quorum for the Assembly and is considered to have attended the sitting day in question. When a Member is authorized to participate in one of these remote ways, their vote will be counted as if it were cast in person, Madam Chair.

I suspect that some of the details of this legislation and how it will operate, if enacted, will need to be fleshed out by the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures in the days ahead, Madam Chair. The future remains very uncertain as to how this pandemic will play out. This legislation will provide us all the legal authority to meet by virtual means, in public, should it be required in the months and years ahead.

This concludes my opening remarks, Madam Chair, and I am happy to take any questions that Members may have.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Would you like to bring witnesses into the Chamber?

Yes, Madam Chair. I would like to bring in Tim Mercer, clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and Mike Reddy, director of legislation division.

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Member for Yellowknife North, will you please introduce your witnesses?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to introduce Tim Mercer, clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and Mike Reddy, director of legislation, seated to my left at the witness table.

Sorry. Could you repeat the last name?

Tim Mercer and Mike Reddy are the witnesses. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I can't hear anything. Sorry. I've got Mr. Mercer.

And Mr. Reddy.

Mr. Reddy. Thank you. I will now open the floor to general comments on Bill 6. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Samara Centre for Democracy is a non-partisan think tank that is based in Ottawa, and it conducts research on strengthening democracy in Canada. Last week, the Samara Centre issued a report on how provincial and territorial legislatures are adapting their work to the pandemic, and a key finding of theirs is that, "despite the rapid emergence of virtual parliaments throughout the world, few provincial and territorial legislatures have looked to technology to keep up with parliamentary business. Just three out of 13 legislatures in Canada have held virtual committee meetings, and only BC and Newfoundland and Labrador have authorized virtual sittings." The finding leads to a recommendation by the Samara Centre that virtual platforms should be embraced to enable legislative activity, and not only that, but participation by all Members, not just those who are in physical proximity to the Legislative Assembly building.

I bring this to your attention because I took part in a virtual news conference about this report and specifically talked about how the NWT has adapted. It's my analysis that we are well ahead here, by having virtual sittings of our standing committees since April. Videoconferencing has enabled us to speak to one another, if not to see one another. We have some people who are still only on phone access. As a matter of fact, as an aside, it has highlighted bandwidth issues in a number of communities, including Yellowknife, where people have struggled to stay online. All the same, we've made that effort. We've tried different platforms, and we are now able to include everyone in our standing committee meetings who wants to be there.

When we were discussing whether to return to this House in person, as a select few, or not at all, many of the Members were interested in a virtual sitting. I wasn't, especially, because of our technology issues, our bandwidth issues, but I do think that it's very important to set the legislative stage for this to happen when we get the digital issues resolved. I feel that we are well ahead with this piece of legislation, and I support it. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Are there other comments? Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes. I, too, support the bill. After the House stopped our earlier sitting on March 16^th, we had about one week off, but then we started to meet, at least as Regular MLAs, using different kinds of videoconferencing services. I think we found ways to make it work, and we got better as we went along, over the several weeks that we tried meeting virtually, at least as a committee. My preference would have been that we had attempted to do this sitting in that manner, as well, but this bill will help enable future Assemblies to have the availability of meeting by videoconferencing.

I think we still have a long way to go in terms of Internet access to the House. I've spoken about it last week in the House, that we need to make sure that we have improved Internet access for all of our communities, including the remote ones, not just the ones that are next to or along the path of the Mackenzie Valley fibre link. It also means setting up distribution systems within those communities.

I'm happy to support this bill, but we also need to build improved Internet access across the Northwest Territories, and we need to go to the federal government, get the money to do it, and make that a priority. I do support the bill and leaving open the door for that kind of work to be done in the future by the Assembly itself. Of course, committees have the ability to set their own rules, and that's why committees were able to meet virtually over the last couple of months. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. I will turn it over to the Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. To the one point, the legislation permits both teleconference by telephone and videoconference appearances. I suspect, if a Member was in the middle of a key vote and cut out, we would do very much what we've been doing in committee meetings, which is to make attempts to reconnect with them. Then, at which point, if we were unable to connect, it would become a matter of privilege, subject to the Speaker's discretion, how to proceed. As stated before, we will bring this to the rules and procedures committee and work out the details for those types of scenarios, to make sure there is a plan in place.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that response. I guess that leads me to another question. Let's say, if there was that one deciding vote, and it could be any one of us, we could be somewhere in any of the small communities, for whatever reason, and all the attention was on us. All of a sudden, it was that one vote. Would there be something built into this bill stating that you would suspend the sitting until we heard the vote come through? Marsi cho.

Thank you, Member. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is nothing built into the legislation to specifically clarify that decision. It would be up to the rules and procedures committee and subject to the Speaker, depending, you know, exactly what the scenario was. I suspect all efforts would be made to reconnect the Member and to find a way to make sure they could digitally cast their vote, should they be disconnected. Thank you, Madam Chair.