This is page numbers 4017 - 4060 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd 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 know.

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Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Madam Chair.

I MOVE that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories remove any regulatory barriers that prevent communities from sharing wild meat to improve food security. Mahsi.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker. Right now you basically need a law degree to figure out whether you can trade with your cousin a bag of dry meat. And the reason for this is quite complicated in that the settled groups had different clauses about when you are allowed to exchange wild meat. Generally, ENR will prosecute you if you sell any wild meat. That's a much bigger debate about market hunting. But if you're an Indigenous person in an unsettled area, arguably you have a very strong case that you can traditionally trade wild meat and that is a right you have regardless of whether it's a claim.

And so what I think ENR needs to do here is find, you know, the highest possible standard and just tell everyone that they are allowed to, you know, trade or barter wild meat for personal use. Right now, it's not the same everywhere. It's -- it depends on your neighbors and a series of tests, but we are charging people for wild meat and in different cases, and it is very confusing. This has been recommended in the food security motion and a number of times, and I think we just need to go above and beyond the land claims and give people the right to exchange some wild meat. Thank you Madam Speaker -- Madam Chair.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

To the motion?

Some Hon. Members

Question.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? All those abstaining? Motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Bonnetrouge.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Madam Chair.

I MOVE that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories expand part 6, conservation and management measures of the Wildlife Act, to include provisions for nomination of conservation areas by Indigenous governments and others consistent to the Protected Areas Act. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion?

Some Hon. Members

Question.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? All those abstaining? Motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Bonnetrouge.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Madam Chair.

I MOVE that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories make the results of discussions at meetings under section 15 of the Wildlife Act publicly available. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

The motion is in order. To the motion?

Some Hon. Members

Question.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? All those abstaining? Motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Bonnetrouge.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Madam Chair.

I MOVE that this committee recommends that the that the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources extend the statutory review period under section 171 of the Wildlife Act to match the review period established under section 147 of the Species at Risk (NWT) Act, and that both of these statutory review periods be reviewed every other Assembly. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would ask committee to indulge me on my opinions of statutory reviews. This was a compromise by committee. I am of the opinion we should have no statutory reviews at all.

Historically, they have been put in by Members who feel one piece of legislation is more important than another. There's about a dozen or so out of the over 280 pieces of legislation the NWT has. If you looked at that list, there is no at all argument you can make those are the most important pieces of legislation. It includes almost none of MACA's legislation, which is everything about communities and their powers. It's almost none of Finance's legislation. The Financial Administration Act, I would argue is the most important piece of legislation we have. It's none of the tax legislation. Almost none of the Department of Justice's legislation in regards to contract law establishing corporations, construction law; they don't have statutory reviews. Residential Tenancies, Employment Standards, Education Act, Human Rights don't have statutory reviews. The list goes on of extremely important acts that have become very outdated and never got a review because committees are obliged to conduct statutory reviews.

I think a much better policy would be to ask each committee to pick two pieces of legislation at the beginning of an Assembly that they think are their priority. What has resulted in many committees is we're reviewing acts that are not our priority. We -- I actually found this Wildlife Act review underwhelming. There was not a lot of urge on the parts of Indigenous governments to reopen the Wildlife Act. I think that's due to ENR's credit in that they have been working diligently on every possible matter and consulting and, you know, I think there were much higher priorities than these two acts.

So my preference would be to get rid of every single statutory review or, at the very least, we as committees should look at what currently has a statutory review and what doesn't and pick what are clearly priorities, because there is a lot of outdated legislation in this territory that has never been reviewed and never will be. But what this motion does is not that. It lines up the period.

Right now the Wildlife Act and the Species at Risk Act were at ten and seven years. The problem with fixed timelines is they often land right before an election. So you are sitting there three months before an election and you're supposed to be completing a statutory review. So it either gets rushed or it just gets put off, and we don't land on the timeline.

What we recommended is that since species at risk and wildlife are linked, to make them have the same review period and to link it to the Assembly. So every second Assembly. This way, we know when it's coming up and it doesn't land, you know, on year one or year three.

So those are my opinions on statutory reviews. I think this is a larger conversation that needs to be had with all committees. But when Ministers bring forward the suite of legislation to come, please do not include statutory reviews. When committees review the legislation to come, please do not add them. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

To the motion? Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks. I guess I could -- I'm not going to start that debate on the statutory reviews. But, yeah, I support this recommendation. It is about trying to coordinate the statutory review requirements under these two pieces of legislation and look at the timing of that so that it falls within the timeframe for each of the Assemblies at a better time. That's what this is really aimed at.

But I just -- on the issue of statutory reviews, and I don't want to prolong this too much longer, but, you know, committees are free to set their own priorities at any point. They can decide what they want to do. They can decide that they want to review other legislation that doesn't even require a statutory review of any sorts. That's up to each committee to decide it, and they can do that at any point.

Where these provisions have been put in, and based on my experience in the last Assembly, they were largely inserted into new or contentious legislation. You know, the one that stands out for me is STEP, where the instructional hours were reduced for teachers. There was a lot of public concern around that and it was felt that there needed to be an evaluation of it to try to balance different points of view and interests and so on. And I think the same holds true with the Wildlife Act. It was a very contentious piece of legislation where THE GNWT basically had to be dragged kicking and screaming into working with Indigenous governments and implementing land rights agreements.

Another example, though, of where a statutory review would have been very helpful would have been on the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It was passed in 1994 and took literally 25 years to finally get a detailed review. And it just took way way too long, and there was just no interest on the part of Cabinet to actually review it in any way. So I do believe that statutory reviews serve a useful function, a useful check and balance, particularly on new or contentious pieces of legislation. And I'll leave it at that for now, Madam Chair. But I'm happy to engage my colleague from Yellowknife North on this debate moving forward. Thanks.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. To the motion? Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I agree with my colleague from Yellowknife North and, you know, we do spend a lot of time on -- you know, on reviewing legislation and probably not as much time as we should spend on other very important things that also affect people. Yeah, you know, we can either -- you know, when we look at legislation, my preference would be to just to remove all the requirements and pick those pieces of legislation that -- that, you know, we as MLAs of the day feel that need to be worked on. Either that, or we just provide it -- that requirement and all of it, which doesn't make any sense. So my -- yeah, my preference on this is to, you know, in the future going ahead is that maybe we have that discussion of removing the requirement for statutory reviews. Thank you.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. To the motion? Member for Thebacha.

Frieda Martselos

Frieda Martselos Thebacha

I just want to make a comment, Madam Chair, on the whole review process because I know that in my area that we have a reserve and because we have a reserve, members of the Salt River First Nation have to follow the Wildlife Act but there's no enforcement on reserve. And so I don't know when that's ever going to happen. So, you know, ENR most of the times -- I mean, 99 percent of ENR do the job that a lot of the things that we -- but this was kind of forced down on us. I remember being part of the Akaitcho territory at the time and this whole Wildlife Act was kind of forced down our throats and we -- there was not a lot of consultation and there was a lot of -- there was a lot of -- sometimes the reviews do have to take place because it's still not -- it's still not serving the people of the Salt River First Nation with -- because there's no enforcement -- enforcement by -- on reserve, but they expect all those members to follow the Wildlife Act. So if a poacher -- poachers go on reserve there's no consequences. So anybody could do whatever they want and that's not -- that's not the way it's supposed to be. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. To the motion?

Some Hon. Members

Question.