Debates of Oct. 23rd, 2025

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the committee wishes to consider Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act; Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act; Bill 27, An Act to Amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act. And, Mr. Chair, Tabled Document 385-20(1f), 2026-2027 Capital Estimates, Department of Infrastructure, Environment and Climate Change, and Education, Culture and Employment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Does the committee agree?

Thank you. We will take a short recess and we'll come back. Thank you.

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Committee, we have agreed to consider Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act. I will ask the Minister of Justice to introduce the bill. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here today to present Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act, for consideration by Committee of the Whole.

Family law in Canada is an area of shared responsibility between the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Bill 23 proposes amendments to the Northwest Territories Children's Law Act that will bring it in line with changes to the federal Divorce Act that came into force in 2021. Recognizing that family breakdown is a difficult experience for everyone involved, especially the children, Bill 23 will bring cases of common law and other non-marriage family breakdown involving children under a legislative regime similar to that for divorcing parents of children subject to federal law. Bill 23 will update the best interests of the child test and related provisions, providing more guidance to Judges, and clarifying that a child is to spend as much time with each parent as is consistent with the child's best interests.

New terminology, as used in the Divorce Act, will be introduced to emphasize parenting responsibilities, custody, and access. Orders will be placed with parenting and contact orders.

The bill includes new provisions on family violence to include some non-criminal behaviour like coercive or controlling behaviour. This is to ensure judges can consider specific factors like ongoing court action that can affect the safety, security, and well-being of the child.

Bill 23 amendments integrate the Divorce Act relocation framework, defining relocation, and ensuring consideration of impacts on key relationships in the child's life. Mandatory notice of relocation to another parent will be required and any objections to relocation must be settled through the courts.

New duties for parents, legal advisors, and courts encourage alternative dispute resolution and will address overlapping justice system encounters.

Further changes unrelated to the Divorce Act will govern the collection and use of information by the NWT child support recalculation service and allow greater flexibility for the judiciary in settling rules of court.

I would like to thank standing committee for its study of the bill. I concurred with four motions proposed by standing committee.

The first motion added clause 38.1 of the bill allowing a person to apply for a court order without notice to other parties in urgent circumstances, including the endangerment of life or health of the child.

The second motion added clause 42.1 allowing the court to appoint counsel for the child if it determines this is in the child's best interest for an application under Part 3 of the Act.

The next two motions amend Clause 14 and 43 of the bill to allow circumstances likely to have a significant impact on the definition of relocation of a child to be set out in regulation and provide the related regulation making authority to do so.

This concludes my remarks and I would be pleased to answer any questions that Members have regarding Bill 23.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, would you like to bring witnesses into the chamber?

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Does the committee agree?

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber.

Minister, please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right, I have assistant deputy minister, attorney general Brad Patzer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I will now turn to the deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Social Development, the committee that reviewed the bill, for any opening comments on Bill 23.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on March 13th, 2025, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Development for review. On October 20th, 2025, the standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Justice and completed its cause-by-cause review of the bill.

I thank the committee for their efforts in reviewing its legislation. Individual Members may have additional comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member for Mackenzie Delta. Are there any other Members that want to make comments? I will go to the Member from the Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I definitely want to thank the other committee members and Minister and his staff and all of the members of the public who helped give us insights and advice on this bill. And I do think we ended up making some positive changes and we have a bill that is going to make some positive changes in terms of addressing family violence.

I just wanted to note, this came up again and again with some of our witnesses, this bill itself, and certainly the Protection Against Family Violence Act, can only tackle a small part of all of the work that needs to be done to address family violence. It is certainly not a comprehensive solution. And even within that -- certainly there has been enough research so far to show that there needs to be a broader review and -- in terms of specifically the emergency protection order system. And so as we started to dig into this bill, I certainly felt a little frustrated and disappointed that the scope of the bill was fairly narrow. I do hope that the government will take to heart, particularly the recommendation 7, around asking the government to initiate a comprehensive review of the entire emergency protection order and protection order system as that is available to the government as part of the Act.

Oh, we are not in the family -- sorry, I preempted.

Okay, thank you. Is there any further comments on Bill 23? I will now open the floor to general comments on Bill 23.

Seeing none, is the committee agreed that there are no further general comments? Can we proceed to cause by cause a review of the bill, does the committee agree?

Thank you. There are 48 clauses in the bill. Where possible, I will call clauses in groups of up to 10. Does the committee agree?

Thank you. Committee, we will defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses.

Clauses 1 to 10, does the committee agree?

Clauses 11 to 20, does the committee agree?