Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that pursuant to Rule 9.4(5)(a) that the Government of the Northwest Territories table a comprehensive response to this report, including all recommendations, within 120 days or at the earliest opportunity subsequent to the passage of 120 days.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. The motion's in order. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion has carried.

---Carried

Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to report its Report on the Review of the 2023-2024 Annual Report of the Northwest Territories Ombud.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that Committee Report 14-20(1), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2023-2024 Annual Report of the Northwest Territories ombud, be deemed read and printed in Hansard in its entirety. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. The motion's in order. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? Motion has carried.

---Carried

Report Link

Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that Committee Report 14-20(1), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2023-2024 Annual Report of the Northwest Territories Ombud, be received and adopted by the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. The motion's in order. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? Motion has been carried.

---Carried

Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that pursuant to Rule 9.4(5)(a) that the Government of the Northwest Territories table a comprehensive response to this report, including all recommendations, within 120 days or at the earliest opportunity subsequent to the passage of 120 days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Motion's in order. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? Motion has carried.

---Carried

Reports of Standing and Special Committees. Returns to oral questions. Acknowledgements.

Colleagues, I'm going to call a ten-minute break to give our translators a bit of a break, and we will come back as soon as we can. Thank you very much.

---SHORT RECESS

Colleagues, oral questions. Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Justice. The 15th Assembly ultimately killed the previous attempt at SCAN legislation in 2007. So my question is has the department revisited this legislative concept between that time in 2007 and now prior to the 20th Assembly, or are we just starting from square one? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I believe it was 2007 is when this was first brought forward, and in the interim period the department hasn't done a lot of work looking at SCAN. A lot of work was done back then and so there's a bit of a base that we can start from but as with anything, a lot changes in 16, 17, 18 years. So there's still a lot of work to be done but it will be informed by other pieces of legislation from around the country that have been operating for an additional, you know, 15, 16 years since then as well as court challenges that have been brought against those pieces of legislation. So we're not starting from scratch, but there's a significant amount of work to do and consultation to do as well. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for that, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister. Sounds like there's some interjurisdictional scan -- no pun intended -- being done there. Can the Minister be specific about what preliminary work his legal staff is conducting with regards to SCAN legislation so that it will, in effect, be a scalpel instead of an unconstitutional hammer? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And as the Member alluded to, there is cross-jurisdictional scans that will be required. There's examination of the Charter challenges that have been brought forward. There's going to have to be discussions, obviously engagement, throughout the territory on this, engagement with other jurisdictions who have had the legislation. So there's a lot of work, and I don't plan on making this an unconstitutional hammer. There was a challenge in the Yukon recently. There was a decision rendered that one minor section -- or one section -- I won't say minor, of that SCAN Act was unconstitutional. From what I understand, it was a rarely used section of that Act, and there is not -- there's not an appeal that's being pursued by the Yukon government so that's essentially a settled matter. And we're going to learn from that and ensure that the legislation that we do enact is tailored to the territory, is fair to residents, and achieves its goals in a constitutional way. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'm hearing that the Minister of Justice is wanting to tailor it to the territories, so I'm just going to build a little on that.

We've heard many times in this House from smaller community MLAs that folks in smaller communities have resorted to vigilantism to scare out dealers. So what kinds of considerations is the Minister instructing his staff to make this legislation do to make sure that it works well for both the needs of the capital and the needs of our smaller communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, we're a little early in the process to start giving direction on how to proceed. I want to see those jurisdictional scans, I want to see the research that is done, and then we can figure out how to move forward. But to the Member's point, I do want to ensure that this -- there's differences between a small community perhaps with no RCMP and somewhere like Yellowknife. And so it's going to -- you know, it won't be easy to find that balance, but I'm confident that we can do that. So the Member can rest assured that we will be taking into consideration the needs of the different sizes and types of communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.