Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Debates of Oct. 4th, 2023
This is page numbers 6721 - 6786 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.
Topics
Committee Motion 495-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Funding Framework, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Committee Motion 495-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Funding Framework, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 4th, 2023
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Yeah, I'm kind of a bit surprised we're just rushing through this because I think there's some pretty significant public policy issues here. And this recommendation, I certainly support because I think there's going to be a lot of work necessary to come up with an action plan to revise policy legislation of this government. And that does require resourcing of some of the Indigenous governments to participate in that process. And then, you know, we get to the stage of actually -- this won't happen in this Assembly but in the next Assembly and the Assembly after that, individual pieces of legislation are going to have to be reviewed. Policies are going to have to be reviewed. Indigenous governments, not all of them have the capacity to do a lot of that work at probably the pace that some others would like.
So I do support this recommendation. And I guess I also have to express some concern that not all the Indigenous governments were a part of the memorandum of understanding or the working group in developing this legislation. You know, I think Cabinet probably tried to engage everybody but not everybody maybe wanted to or had the capacity to or thought that this was the best use of their resources for whatever reason. But, you know, as I understand it, at least a couple of very significant regional Indigenous governments, Akaitcho and the Deh Cho, were not engaged, not involved in this work to develop the bill. But maybe if there's sufficient resources made available, maybe they would have the ability to participate in the future in the implementation. So I do support this recommendation. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 495-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Funding Framework, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
Committee Motion 495-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Funding Framework, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
Some Hon. Members
Question.
Committee Motion 495-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Funding Framework, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
The Chair Lesa Semmler
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member for Yellowknife North.
Committee Motion 496-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Mechanism on Action Plan Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North
Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends the Government of the Northwest Territories, in consultation with the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight and Indigenous governments or organizations, set up a mechanism that ensures Regular Members can access timely, comprehensive, and detailed information about the action plan committee's work. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 496-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Mechanism on Action Plan Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Member. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Committee Motion 496-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Mechanism on Action Plan Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Yeah, thanks. I can certainly support this. I am concerned about the level of engagement there was with Regular MLAs in the development of the bill. Unfortunately, it all happened behind closed doors so I can't say much, but it certainly didn't meet my expectation. And the bill, I don't think, really reflected, in my opinion, the legislative proposal, which I can't speak to either, was at such a high vague level that the bill I guess didn't really -- the bill had a lot more in it than I think I'd expected as a result of the legislative proposal, and there's a number of issues that I'm sure we're going to discuss further when we get to the actual -- the bill itself. But we do have process conventions in place now that allow for information sharing on a confidential basis. And I guess there's been a number of cases in this Assembly where that hasn't happened, and I continue to highlight those.
But moving forward, Cabinet's got to find a better way to do this, especially with this bill because this bill can and probably should change the way we do our business. It will. It'll affect the legislative agenda for the next Assembly and the one after that. It'll affect the policy work, the kind of things that committees are asked to do. A big part of it is going to be related to the implementation of this declaration, and the Regular MLAs can and need to be part of that process. Relying on Cabinet to get information secondhand, in my experience in the last Assembly, in this Assembly, just doesn't work. It doesn't work. And I -- you know, great if some effort can be put into some kind of a mechanism to share timely, comprehensive, and detailed information on the action plan committee's work, but I don't really -- I just haven't seen that implemented even in the development of this bill itself. And I'm going to speak to that when we get to the bill itself and at least one other recommendation here. So I can support this, but I think there's a better fix for this and I'm going to be raising that when we get to the bill itself. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 496-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Mechanism on Action Plan Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
Committee Motion 496-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Mechanism on Action Plan Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
Some Hon. Members
Question.
Committee Motion 496-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Mechanism on Action Plan Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6734
The Chair Lesa Semmler
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstaining? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member for Yellowknife North.
Committee Motion 497-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Shared Decision-Making Agreement, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North
Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories should, without delay, make all authorizations provided to a Minister to negotiate or enter into a shared decision-making agreement under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act publicly available by publishing it on a government-maintained website. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 497-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Shared Decision-Making Agreement, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Member. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Committee Motion 497-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Shared Decision-Making Agreement, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So this is an interesting feature of this bill is that the Cabinet will authorize individual Ministers to go off and negotiate something called shared decision-making agreements with Indigenous governments. It's also part of BC's legislation to implement the declaration. I think this -- that's a good thing. I support it in principle. But I do think that Cabinet dropped the ball in terms of not adopting the approach that BC has of actually making that delegation of authority or at least not providing notice to the public that that's going to happen. What has been added to the bill as a result of the committee review is that, you know, the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight basically -- and its successors, which is basically the Regular MLAs -- will get that notice. But it's not a public document. The Cabinet, in putting this bill together, completely forgot about the public. And I'm going to talk more about that in my general remarks on the bill itself, but.
So this notice is going to go to the Regular MLAs through the standing committee, but it's not going to be made public. I don't think that's good enough, and I think we need to do a lot more work around public education and how this is going to work. Some of that's just going to roll out as we get into this process. But Cabinet just didn't do a very good job in terms of the public interest, public participation in its own public government -- sorry, open government policy in preparing this bill. And I'm going to continue to shine a light on that. So great that these agreements are going to be shared publicly after the fact, but I don't think that that's good enough. I think that they should actually be shared publicly before they're finalized so that the public can see what the government's doing. That's what open, transparent, and accountable government's all about. And Cabinet just doesn't seem to want to go there, so I'm quite disappointed. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 497-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Shared Decision-Making Agreement, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Committee Motion 497-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Shared Decision-Making Agreement, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Some Hon. Members
Question.
Committee Motion 497-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Shared Decision-Making Agreement, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
The Chair Lesa Semmler
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member for Yellowknife North.
Committee Motion 498-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Provide Notice to Standing Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide notice and seek comments from the Standing Committee of Accountability and Oversight before entering into a shared decision-making agreement under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 498-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Provide Notice to Standing Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Member. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Committee Motion 498-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Provide Notice to Standing Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Madam Chair. So the reason why this recommendation is here is that committee tried to get this included in the bill at the clause-by-clause review, and the Minister would not concur. So the fallback position for committee is to try to bring it forward as a recommendation and I guess at the appropriate time when we're in the bill itself, I'll move a motion to try to get back -- to get it in. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 498-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Provide Notice to Standing Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Committee Motion 498-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Provide Notice to Standing Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Some Hon. Members
Question.
Committee Motion 498-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Provide Notice to Standing Committee, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
The Chair Lesa Semmler
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member for Yellowknife North.
Committee Motion 499-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Five Year Review, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 6735
Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North
Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories in its capacity as a member of the action plan committee, advocate for the action plan committee to choose an independent person or entity to lead the five-year review of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Committee Motion 499-19(2): Committee Report 55-19(2) Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of Bill 85: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act - Five Year Review, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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