Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I am -- I'm going to support this. It's moving forward. We're going to bring everybody to the table And that's good news about what's happening here. Devolution in ‘14, I was here when that happened. And Inuvialuit, we signed on and everybody was given opportunity. But now if this bill passes, we get to pull it, bring everybody to the table and everybody will have a voice and a say in what they think is right. You know, I really hear what Ron says but, you know, at the end of the day we have to work together, and what Mr. Simpson said is we have to -- a starting point. This is a starting point to something bigger than what we're talking about here. It's going to bring all the nations together, to work together for the betterment of our people who we serve. And that's why we're here. And that's one thing we can't take -- when we take away with this, it's a steppingstone and we leave it to the next government to try to do better and to finish it off. And, you know, I hope in one day they could get all this sorted out. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Nunakput. General comments? Seeing none, can we proceed to the clause-by-clause review of the bill?

Committee, we will defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses. I will call the clauses in groups. Please turn to page 1 of the bill.

Clause 1 through 5, does committee agree?

Clauses 6 through 7, does committee agree?

Clause 8. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I guess this is one of the areas that I highlighted in some of my earlier remarks. You know, we do need an action plan to help implement the declaration. Section 8 sets out the membership of the action plan committee. And, you know, 8(2) says the action plan committee must be comprised of members appointed by Indigenous governments and the Government of the Northwest Territories. So can the Minister speak to why there's no role for Regular MLAs with regard to the action plan committee? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Every one of the motions that were brought forward by the standing committee were brought back to the Indigenous governments. The comment was made that this will be the Premier's legacy. This is not the Premier's legacy. The Premier did not direct this. This was done at the table. The GNWT was one member at the table of the Council of Leaders. This is the Council of Leaders legacy, Madam Chair.

So within that spirit of working together in consensus, every single suggestion was brought forward to the Council of Leaders table. When we brought this motion forward and said, you know, the Regular Members would like to have a say in it, the Council of Leaders pointed out the power imbalances.

Within the act, it does state that the Members will be appointed by Indigenous governments, organizations and the Government of the Northwest Territories. That action plan committee will be taking off, probably in the next government. They can elect to have their officials there. They can elect to be there themselves if they wish to.

Any official that works for the GNWT is well aware that they report directly to the Minister, in this case myself, and they have accountability with that.

When we brought this forward, the officials had concerns, Madam Chair. They talked about the power imbalance. They know that -- they know the structure of the Legislative Assembly. They know that when Members -- Ministers are elected by the Regular Members, they represent all residents of the NWT, but they also know that Regular Members don't necessarily have to represent all members of the -- all residents of the NWT.

In fact, they are mostly reportable to their constituents and often will lobby for their constituents' needs versus all needs although there's some overlap often. So when we brought it forward, they said no, it would put them in a place that they weren't comfortable. If they had to have representation from the Legislative Assembly as the Regular Members, then they would have to consider inviting their leadership and then there couldn't be the frank discussions that happen at that table. So there was a real concern about the power imbalance, about the obligations, about the freedom to speak at will, because often when your Minister or your chief or your leader is there, you don't have the -- you have to be very careful what you say. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, okay. Thanks for that. I guess I'll -- we're going to get to a debate about something a little later here, but.

So I just want to turn to the -- there's a process convention on communications between Cabinet Ministers, standing committees, and Regular Members, and section 3 is consultations with standing committees. I'm just going to paraphrase something in here.

You know, from time to time Cabinet may wish to see considered input from a standing committee on a proposed government initiative plan, activity, or discussion paper. In these instances, Cabinet may provide a committee with proposals, draft plans, or discussion papers for the committee's formal review and comment.

So, you know, I suspect this -- you know, we don't know what's going to happen in the next Assembly but the usual starting point for the process conventions is the ones that are currently in place. So, you know, how does the Minister then see sharing information progress on the action plan with Regular Members? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, okay, that's very interesting. But what should the Minister do about this, Minister of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs. What sort of tools or things would this Minister expect they would use to communicate what's happening with the action plan committee to Regular MLAs maybe on a more proactive basis? Not wait for questions in the House, not wait to be called before a standing committee. What should happen? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps I wasn't loud enough or clear enough when I started with saying what a Minister should do. A Minister should be making statements in the House about the work they're doing. They should be offering briefings to standing committee. And, in my opinion, they should have an open door whenever a Member has a question or a comment or a concern, they should be available to them. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, we have -- you know, the Intergovernmental Council's in place now for a number of years; it's actually established through legislation. The Council of Leaders is in place, and that was through a series of discussions and negotiations led by the Premier, and I compliment her for that. Regular Members have actually been able to send observers to those meetings. I personally attended Intergovernmental Council meetings. They've actually asked me to say things once or twice. I actually give my colleagues in the standing committee written reports from my meetings. I share agendas with them. What's the problem with having some kind of, whether it's an MLA or a representative, being, you know, there to observe and share the information with the colleagues back on the AOC or, you know -- I don't think we ever want to put a staff person here in that position but maybe AOC would have to hire somebody to -- an experienced person to go and observe and provide feedback. I just don't understand what the problem is. Maybe it's because we do such a bad job in explaining the difference between the legislative and executive branches of government. But I'm kind of thinking if it I was an Indigenous government, I would actually want Regular MLAs to know what's happening in those meetings so that if things go off the rails, the Regular MLAs can then start to raise those issues and hold Cabinet to account. But what do I know? So if we're already doing this in a couple of other -- you know, in the Intergovernmental Council, the Council of Leaders, why can't it be done with the action plan committee? And maybe it's just trust or we're so new at this we don't know what we're doing yet, but I just don't get it. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is a difference. And, Madam Chair, the Member is right. There is a Regular Member that's invited to the Intergovernmental Council table, and there's a Regular Member that's invited to the Council of Leaders table. Those tables, both the Intergovernmental Council and the Council of Leaders, are the leaders of the governments - GNWT, Indigenous governments, and organizations. They are chiefs, Ministers, Premier, presidents, whatever chair, whatever the title may be. The difference, Madam Chair, is that this is an action plan committee. There may be the occasional leader there if that Indigenous government or organization deems that they need to be there. But the majority of them, my guesstimate, will be officials. And as stated before, and right up to this morning when we asked about it again, it was really clear from the Indigenous governments that doing this will put them in a very challenging position of having to consider bringing their own political leadership to the conversation. They stated very clearly that it might jeopardize the good collaborative working relationship that we have built on this file.

We have taken four years to work on this file, Madam Chair. And to jeopardize it -- and even, Madam Chair, I have to clarify. Even myself, as the Premier, was not at every single meeting. I had faith in my officials to be able to carry the concerns of my own and the government's and the general public forward. So that is the difference. Those two tables that the Member identified are leader tables. This action plan working group might not all be leaders. Thank you, Madam Chair. And there is power imbalance.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Member for Frame Lake.