Thank you. The motion is being distributed. Member for Frame Lake, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that Bill 85 be amended by deleting subclause 8(2) and substituting the following:

(2) The action plan committee must be comprised of

(a) members appointed by Indigenous governments or organizations of the Northwest Territories;

(b) members appointed by the Government of the Northwest Territories; and

(c) subject to subsection (2.1), one member appointed by motion of the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight or any successor committee that may be established by the Legislative Assembly.

(2.1) The action plan committee may, in respect of a Member appointed under paragraph (2)(c), limit or specify

(a) the classes of persons eligible for appointment; and

(b) the rights of participation of the member in the work of the action plan committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So what this would do is create the ability for the Regular Members to have a representative, whether it's a Member or some other representative of the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight, be at the committee meetings -- the action plan committee meetings. And this is further, though, restricted and so basically it would be up to the action plan committee itself to determine the classes of persons that might be eligible, whether that's an elected official or a hired person by AOC. The action plan committee would decide this itself.

The action plan committee would also decide how, where, and when that person could be involved in the action plan committee. The action plan committee could say, you know what, you're not going to be at -- you're only going to be at portions of meetings, or you're not going to be at this meeting or that meeting. And you can only send a staff person; you can't send an elected official. So basically this would put the authority with the action plan committee itself as to how and who from the Regular Members would be allowed to observe, participate in whatever capacity, at the action plan committee.

And the reason why I moved this and bring it forward is because, as I said in my earlier remarks, I think this has the potential to significantly change the work of this Legislative Assembly, the legislation that comes before it, the policies that will come before committees. And I'm sorry, I think that the best way to convey that information is for the Regular MLAs to have somebody at the meetings. Cabinet has not demonstrated to me that they can share the information that the Regular Members need sometimes. And we've seen that in the development of this bill. They didn't bother to talk to us about Private Member's bills, having statements of consistencies, a number of other items in here. That's just one example. So I'll just leave it at that for now, Madam Chair.

No, I won't, I have -- look, I'm not trying to stop this bill. I'm not trying to slow it down in any way. People are going to say that about me; that's fine. I want to support this. I want to make this better. And I want both sides of the House to be involved in how we actually implement Indigenous rights. And that's how consensus government is supposed to work, and that's what this motion is about. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. To the motion. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't support this motion. I think the Premier has made it clear that it's going to be mostly made up of officials. And I think, you know, as a general understanding that politicians meet with politicians and officials meet with officials. You know, I don't ever expect to show up to a deputy ministers committee, but I -- you know, I would appreciate, and I do appreciate, when Cabinet invites, you know, MLAs to the Council of Leaders or the IGC. And, you know, I even think they go a little farther when they're in bilaterals with an Indigenous government. If the leadership is there, they could invite the MLA from that region. But I don't view us either sending a staff person or sending an MLA to a group largely made up of officials.

I also think this is -- it's kind of -- it's pushing our role. And I get Regular MLAs, we always want to see how the sausage is made. But, you know, ultimately, we operate under the principle that, you know, Cabinet proposes and the legislature disposes. And there's going to be a bunch of lawyers in a room spending the next few years fighting over the definition of free prior informed consent. And we're going to get reports that they're sitting there fighting over the definition, and I don't know what that does. You know, really, at the end of the day, we have to wait and see what the end result is. It would be similar to, you know, me asking to attend a negotiation with a bunch of lead negotiators. I would love that opportunity but I recognize that that just isn't my role. You got to wait and you got -- sometimes you got to wait for decades to see what the end result is, and that's done in confidence, and that's so officials can speak frankly. And then when the time's finally done, they can take it back to their leadership who can go through their council approval process or their Assembly approval process or back to the Assembly and go through their legislative approval process. So, you know, given that the Premier has made it quite clear this will be mostly officials, I can't support this motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. To the motion. Member for Thebacha.

I too feel very -- you know, government to government is very important with this whole bill, okay. Government to government is the governments that -- the Indigenous all have their own governments. They make decisions in one day. They don't wait ten years. And so, you know, I always say that, and government to government relationship is really important. I think we have a role -- a different role. If something went wrong or someone said something that just wasn't quite right, I mean, you're already called on to the carpet to advocate on behalf of that First Nation as an MLA. I think we have roles to play all over. I played those roles with all the First Nations that are in my area. And you know, if they certainly let me know when something is not quite right. I mean, that's part of our role. And I appreciate that role because, you know -- and being a First Nation leader for many years, I see that as -- it's a different part of my role now but I understand the whole way it comes about. Less interference is great because, you know, First Nations don't -- you know, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. They have some -- they have pretty smart leaders. They've been through the mill. They've had -- a lot of people say no to them without really listening to both sides.

Our leaders, don't take them for granted, okay. The Indigenous leaders are extremely brilliant. I've worked with some extremely brilliant leaders, just like I'm working with extremely brilliant people around this table. And never take anybody for granted because, you know, I always say, even in business, you never know which door you're going to have to knock on. Always leave the door open. And I don't think that it is our role to be going to observe or try to influence in any way, shape, or form a decision that is being put forward on a working paper that the Indigenous government and our government has got to make a decision on. And, yes, they will inform us of that decision, I'm sure, because we'll make sure of that, right, as Regular Members. So that's my two cents, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Thebacha. To the motion.

Question has been called. Oh, did you -- sorry. Madam Premier.

Thank you. I will now go to the mover of the motion for any closing comments. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I respect all the comments I heard. You know, this motion does not require or enable elected MLAs to participate in any way in the action plan committee. It allows for a representative to be there on the terms and conditions that are set by the committee itself. This is not about interfering or trying to influence the process. It's about understanding what's happening there and how it will change the legislative branch of government. This is not about the executive branch of government. This is -- the plan, when it's done, will change the legislative branch of government. It'll change how we do things here. It'll change the legislation, the policies, the work that standing committees do. And to exclude Regular MLAs from that process, I just don't think that that's a good idea and I don't think it's in keeping with the process conventions. And that's all I have to say.

But I think this was a worthwhile debate. And I expect that the next Cabinet, the next Minister, will actually find better ways to share information about this because it didn't happen in the drafting of this bill. So whoever the next Minister is is going to have to work a lot harder in sharing information, and maybe even finagling an occasional invitation or something, for Regular MLAs or their representative. Maybe come and see what happens once in a while. So the next Minister's going to have to do a way better job in communicating what's happening at that action plan committee with the Regular MLAs. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. To the motion.

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

---Defeated

Clause 8, does committee agree?

Clause 9 through 11, does committee agree?

Clause 12. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I said in my earlier remarks -- before somebody tries to say otherwise -- that I agree in principle to the idea of shared decision-making agreements. And, you know, I think we probably have some kind of examples out there of those sorts of arrangements. You know, you might say that Deline self-government is that kind of an arrangement. But I guess one of the concerns I have here is, you know, we don't really know or understand what the scope of these agreements could look like; how frequent they may be; how many there may be; what is GNWT going to look like at the end of the day. Is it just going to be some kind of a rump government that doesn't do much? You know, I don't know. You know, I think we're starting to verge on constitutional change here or looking at what is the relationship between public and Indigenous governments. And, in any event, I would like to get some understanding from the folks at the witness table as to what the scope of these agreements is going to be, how frequent they could be, what is GNWT going to look like after these agreements have been negotiated. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this concept of shared agreements comes actually from the BC legislation, the United Nations Declaration there. We had much discussion on that at the working level when we were drafting this bill.

The agreements might come in different forms. Martin Goldney can expand on that later. We don't know yet. We haven't had that experience and that's why we were careful with it as well.

But I do want to say, Madam Chair, that there's many agreements. The MLAs are not always part of every single agreement that the executive branch makes. For example, we make agreements with land claims, self-government agreements that are often not shared with MLAs until later, if ever. We have agreements with the federal government, Madam Chair, that we make. I mean, often the federal government binds us and says we're going to do this with you but you cannot say anything to anyone until we announce it publicly. So this is not a differing aspect of how we work. This has been done with other governments. We're just expanding this to Indigenous governments. We have it already with the federal government. Why should it be any different with the Indigenous governments? Okay, thank you, Madam Chair.