Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing forward the bill, but the public should know that we received by email exactly one hour before this special sitting. So I really haven't had a lot of time to consider the bill, and I think it's kind of very unusual to get a bill in this manner. Of course, these are very unusual times.

I do share, I think the intent of wanting to improve emergency management, and I think that's a shared value amongst us all and if it isn't, we are not doing our jobs. But I guess I do question about whether this is the right approach.

I'm not sure that I can agree with all the points that the Member for Great Slave raised. I think at the initial part of the evacuation, things were chaotic and perhaps communications can and should be improved, but it's not my understanding of the work that's being done now with Indigenous governments. Perhaps there's some room for improvement, but I don't think that this bill would necessarily do that even in the current emergency that we're in.

I guess I also think that we need to very carefully take the necessary time to do a proper review and evaluation of what's happened in the current emergency with the evacuation orders and the response as well, and my view is that I think that would, I guess, be done probably by an independent third party. And that's in no way any criticism of any of our staff, the firefighters. They need to be a central part of whatever review takes place. But certainly the nature and -- of fire is changing as the climate is changing. It's a climate emergency, and I think where the nature of fires changed dramatically over the last few years and that needs to be part of whatever review takes place. Like my colleague from Yellowknife North, I'm not sure that it's -- it cannot happen within the lifetime of this Assembly. I think we need to be very honest. I think if we have a sitting in September, that'll be an opportunity to ask some questions, have a debate around all of this, but we're still in the midst of this emergency and I think we need to focus our time and effort on getting the work done to protect our communities, getting the -- supporting the firefighters, the contractors, the volunteers that are doing the work, and working on behalf of our constituents, many of whom have been evacuated, to make sure that their needs are met as well. So I think our time and effort would be much better spent on those areas.

I did have a look at the current legislation, and, you know, section 6(4) of the current legislation, this is where, under the direction of the Minister, the emergency management organization shall do a number of things. I will acknowledge that coordination with Indigenous governments is not mentioned in this bill, but it certainly does -- sorry, in the legislation itself, but it does speak to the issue of emergency support, the emergency management activities of local authorities. So, yeah, that could probably be fine-tuned. But I'm not convinced that doing this on the fly like this is the best way necessarily to address the issue, the problem. In fact, it may even be more desirable to better define membership in the emergency management organization and what sort of scope and breadth that it deals with in particular kinds of situations. But I'm not an expert in this area, but I think it does warrant some public debate and discussion but as part of a broader more comprehensive thoughtful review.

All that being said, Mr. Speaker, I'm prepared to have this bill go to second reading and, like my colleague from Yellowknife North, have it studied by a committee or, indeed, in the context of a broader review of, you know, the emergency and our response, but I'm not prepared to have this go to third reading today. And if unanimous consent is sought to do that, I will nay simply because I'm not convinced that this is necessarily the best approach. I'll also need more time to look at this, and I think it should be part of a much more comprehensive review of what's happening and we need, again, Mr. Speaker, to focus our efforts on supporting those that are working and putting their own lives at risk to support -- to -- sorry, protect our communities. So that's where I think our effort would be best directed. Mahsi, Monsieur le President.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Member for Nahendeh.

So first and foremost, I've been in touch with the impacted IG leaders. MACA has been meeting daily with Tlicho. I can tell you that right now. The Yellowknife -- Yellowknife is working in partnership with Yellowknife Dene, and there are several senior GNWT staff in Yellowknife working.

Mr. Speaker, amending the Emergency Management Act in the middle of a severe ongoing emergency response is not safe or a responsible thing to do. The act provides the structure to coordinate emergency response through a territorial emergency management organization called TEMO. The TEMO includes representatives from jurisdictions actively responding to the emergency, including federal agency, territorial government, department and local governments. These folks work under incredible difficult circumstances to action activities quickly under an incident command model, which is best practice for emergency response around the world.

I commend the work that the Tlicho government, Gwich'in government, Inuvialuit Regional Council, Deline government, and other Indigenous governments and organizations for taking action to support their residents, and we'll continue to commit to have our officials as they are available to work collaboratively to support our shared goals. I cannot, however, agree that we should be retooling our emergency management in the middle of a crisis.

Presently, we have seven communities that are evacuated from their homes. Implementing structural changes to our EMO in the middle of a crisis is not fair to the people already working, the organization, and they need to be able to rely on predictable approaches and clear responsibilities as they're doing their work. To suddenly and without planning 15 new organizations are added to the response activity, I am gravely concerned that TEMO's ability to function as intended and as needed. Right now local governments are part of the TEMO and, in some cases, the local government is the Indigenous government. I recognize that we should be doing some work to consider better -- or defining roles for Indigenous governments in the TEMO. That day is not today.

What we can do today is to commit to work with all Indigenous governments and have a proper review of the Emergency Management Act when circumstance allow. So, therefore, Mr. Speaker, we will -- Cabinet will be naying this second reading -- or going to the third reading. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank the mover and the seconder of the bill as well because I think it does have merit. As far as I'm concerned, Indigenous participation is important and paramount when it comes to protection of our land, forests, and communities. However, Mr. Speaker, for me, at this time, knowing what's taken place in Hay River, Fort Smith, and Yellowknife, I don't think it's appropriate to change this piece of legislation at this point without consultation from all Indigenous governments. Some thought has to be put into this, and it's probably something that's best left for the future government. So I don't mind it, I guess, going to -- you know, moving on, but, you know, I can't support a change at this point in time. I think we got too much work ahead of us and right now, for me, you know, being in Hay River for -- you know, for the, you know, most of the -- what's happening here for the last week or two weeks, you know, we're in the fight to save our community and other communities are in the same boat as well, and then that's where our focus has to be. It has to be on our communities, and it has to be on the people at this point in time. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before we move on, I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank both the mover and the seconder for bringing this forward. I think that this is a really important conversation to be had, and I appreciate when people use private Member's bills in order to move things that they are passionate about and that are important to the people of the Northwest Territories. I wanted to just thank the Member for Monfwi for bringing this forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. I will allow the Member for Monfwi to do closing comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too want to just thank the mover of the motion and the seconder for their intent of the motion. I think a good review that will take place with the next Assembly will be -- we'll know what happened and what was wrong and what was right and -- but I'm not going to be questioning some of the -- you know, I want to remain calm because that's what my constituents would appreciate. I know for a fact as a former chief of the Salt River First Nation that I've been chief for 14 years, and Indigenous governments in the community of Fort Smith were always kept informed throughout the steps of every step until the evacuation. The mayor and council and the person in charge of EMO in Fort Smith was -- were all consulted, including myself. And I was always updated by the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Minister of ECC. I was always kept informed and, you know, I'm not a computer person. Everybody knows that. And so they either text me and then I'd look at my emails, because I know how to do that, and I was able to navigate everything that I've done for the people of Fort Smith. At this point, I really do not want to sound like -- you know, there might have been some communication gaps but those communication gaps were for me to make sure that the communication gap was addressed. Every MLA has to do that. That's my job. I was, like I said previously, the 1-800 number. I'm not going to be questioning what the first responders are doing or not doing. It's not up to me because I know they're trying to save my community, which is still at risk. Okay, when you have 30-degree -- 30-degree Celsius at this time of year, that's unusual, but I will not be saying that we have to go ahead and go ahead and do the EMO bill that -- the private Member's bill that's before us. I will not be supporting that at this time. You can't do that in the middle of the emergency. There's a time and place for everything. And in the next Assembly, or in the next sitting in September, we'll have a debate on this. And I will not be supporting the amendment of Bill 98 in the second -- in this second reading. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Thebacha. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.

Question has been called. Pursuant to Rule 10.3(1), this will be a recorded vote. The clerk shall call out each Member. Please reply with your vote either in favour, opposed, or abstaining. Mr. Clerk.

I support. In favour.

Strongly in favour.

Opposed.

In favour.