Thank you. I'm going to have to -- this is a new process for all of us. And so because it's a motion to amend a clause, the Members that can speak and so I didn't want to cut anybody off. But we're going to go call the motion again, and then we're going to have to go from there. Just because -- so to the motion.

Question has been called. I'll return -- sorry. There's a lot going on here. I'm going to pass it back to the mover of the motion to close the debate on this. Member for Frame Lake.

No, thank you -- or thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, we're kind of constrained to some extent by our procedures here, and we don't have the ability to have the kind of back and forth that we had in the technical -- sorry, with the committee meeting and in the clause-by-clause review so I appreciate the difficulty of trying to do this sometimes in Committee of the Whole.

But I just wanted to have an opportunity to respond to some of the things that I heard, and I respect all the viewpoints that I hear in this House even if I disagree with them sometimes. It's certainly not my intention to try to delay this bill. I want this bill passed in this sitting as much as probably anybody else because I had to try to deal with it in the last Assembly.

So that's not my intention here. I think -- well, I don't think; my intention here was to bring forward the motions that we had in -- from the committee to actually get a full response because we ran out of time, as several Members have indicated. So now that I've got the response, that's better; I have a better understanding of where folks have landed. But I haven't really heard any specific response as to why we can't release forest harvesting agreements as a public document. I haven't heard why we can't make permits and licenses that are not for personal use available for public disclosure as we do with all kind of other permits and licenses, because I think that's only in the interest of making more transparent and accountable decisions. So, you know, in no way am I trying to undermine the process convention that was set up, the Legislative Development Protocol.

I had to live through all of this in the last Assembly and made some very strong recommendations in the last Assembly supporting where we're at. So I'm not trying to undermine any of this stuff. We simply ran out of time as a committee. And I believe it is in the public interest to have the kind of debate and discussion we're having right now on the floor of the House about whether some additional information should be made public in the bill itself. That's what this is about.

And I guess in my view -- believe me, I'm not going to speak for another ten minutes so, because I'm the only thing that stands between people and dinner. So in my view, though, a lot of this can and should have been fixed before the bill ended up with committee.

The issue of a public registry, more public information being made public, that was raised in the last Assembly with Bill 44. It was raised again during the public engagement by the Northwest Territories Association of Communities and the NGOs. I made the same comments at second reading on the bill, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. And I think those -- that issue of public information, of public registry, should have been fixed before the bill got here. But it wasn't. So we negotiated to a point where we've got a pretty short list, much shorter than I would like, and I think it's in the public interest to add these additional items. Clearly, it's not going to get support here, and that's fine. But I think it was worthwhile to have this discussion and debate on the floor of this House. And, Madam Chair, I think that's all I have to say.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hand. All those abstaining, please raise your hand. The motion is defeated.

---Defeated

Clause 14.1, does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Committee, I just wanted to explain -- sorry, because when we're speaking to a motion, we can't ask questions. But we can ask questions -- that's why we have the witnesses here. When there's a clause to that clause, you can ask questions. So if we -- that's the difference and the Minister and the witnesses can respond to questions from Members but once we go to the motion, only the Members can speak to the motion. Sorry, that was -- and that's what happened. So with that, we are going to take a recess, and we'll come back with the remainder of this bill.

---SHORT RECESS

Members, we're going to continue on with the clauses from Bill 74, Forest Act, and we're continuing on with clause 15. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Clause 15.1. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So this is an addition to the bill that standing committee worked with the departmental staff and the technical working group on, and there's now a new requirement for an annual report from the forest superintendent.

Part of the reason for this was during committee's review of the bill -- and it was actually in submissions as well -- that there was some concern that this forest superintendent has really broad powers to help create or develop forest ecosystem management plans that needs to be done collaboratively with Indigenous governments and co-management bodies, monitoring, research, a whole bunch of things. But all of that was kind of qualified by the word "may". And there was concerns raised about how much discretion this position seemed to have without any accountability. So committee thought about this a lot, and we came up with the wording that now appears in section 15.1, which is a relatively short list of things that the forest superintendent is now going to be required to report on. There's a lot of other things the forest superintendent will actually do. And I guess I'd like to get an explanation from the Minister as to how this list was arrived at. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

For that detail, I'll turn to Dr. Kelly. Thank you.

Dr. Kelly.

Thank you. Minister.

Yes, thank you. With your permission, I'd ask Mr. Wheler to provide something from the technical working committee too. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Wheler.

Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks for that. I guess I want to point out that the wording, you know, about research activities is actually not contained in here. We're going to get to that in a minute with a potential motion. But the other list of items here in 15.1, they're all kind of preceded with this language about it's a summary of. And then it's any activities, any forest ecosystem management plans, any monitoring. So, you know, this word "any" and the kind of activity, that's the way that it's presented in the list here. So I just want that clarified, but -- or I just think it's important to look at the way this was drafted as well.

I guess the other concern with this list from committee's perspective, and my perspective, is that there's nothing in here about inspection and enforcement. So where would the public have any sense of whether there's inspections being carried out, whether there's any enforcement activities being carried out? You know, people want to have some reassurance that if we're going to pass legislation that departments actually follow up and actually do the work and that they have the resources to do the work as well, because we don't want people doing things that they're not supposed to be doing. So where would the public find out anything about inspection and enforcement activities if the forest superintendent doesn't have to report on it? Where would they find that information and where is it in the bill itself? Thanks, Madam Chair.