Yeah, okay, that's very interesting. But what should the Minister do about this, Minister of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs. What sort of tools or things would this Minister expect they would use to communicate what's happening with the action plan committee to Regular MLAs maybe on a more proactive basis? Not wait for questions in the House, not wait to be called before a standing committee. What should happen? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, okay. Thanks for that. I guess I'll -- we're going to get to a debate about something a little later here, but.

So I just want to turn to the -- there's a process convention on communications between Cabinet Ministers, standing committees, and Regular Members, and section 3 is consultations with standing committees. I'm just going to paraphrase something in here.

You know, from time to time Cabinet may wish to see considered input from a standing committee on a proposed government initiative plan, activity, or discussion paper. In these instances, Cabinet may provide a committee with proposals, draft plans, or discussion papers for the committee's formal review and comment.

So, you know, I suspect this -- you know, we don't know what's going to happen in the next Assembly but the usual starting point for the process conventions is the ones that are currently in place. So, you know, how does the Minister then see sharing information progress on the action plan with Regular Members? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I guess this is one of the areas that I highlighted in some of my earlier remarks. You know, we do need an action plan to help implement the declaration. Section 8 sets out the membership of the action plan committee. And, you know, 8(2) says the action plan committee must be comprised of members appointed by Indigenous governments and the Government of the Northwest Territories. So can the Minister speak to why there's no role for Regular MLAs with regard to the action plan committee? Thank you, Madam Chair.

I don't want the clock to be run out. I want to know how specifically the open government policy was used in drafting this bill. I don't want to hear about the roles of Cabinet. I don't want to hear about roles of Regular MLAs. I want to know how the open government policy was implemented in the drafting of this bill. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks for that confirmation. I do want to thank the committee for its work. You know, and there's some good features in here. Don't anybody characterize me as trying to stop or oppose this. The action plan is a good idea.

The idea of doing a review, the shared decision-making agreements-in-principle, all good things, and certainly consistent with the declaration. The issue is none of that was going to be public. Absolutely nothing. No public information about it, no opportunity for public engagement. I just -- one of the most frustrating things I found, certainly in this Assembly, is I want to give the Premier and Cabinet lots of credit. They did a great job in engaging and working with Indigenous governments. Maybe not all of them. But they have completely forgotten that they're actually supposed to be a public government. Committee had to fix this up. Committee shouldn't have to fix that up. So I want the Minister to tell me how they actually considered the open government policy in putting this bill together. Thank you.

Yeah, that's good to hear. But I asked whether there was any work with Regular MLAs about including Private Member's bill within the scope of this bill before it was given to us. Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And the Minister has confirmed that the only specific role in here is about getting notice about authorization for a Cabinet Minister to go off and negotiate a shared decision-making agreement. But, you know, we're supposed to be a consensus government system, and this is not any regular kind of bill. This is a bill to implement Indigenous rights and has the potential to very significantly change the way the Legislative Assembly operates, the way the legislative agenda's formulated, what happens in committees.

And to exclude Regular MLAs from that process, not good. Not good. And it's not within keeping of how consensus government is supposed to work in my humble opinion. And you know, the committee tried to build in ways for Regular MLAs to be direct observers, dare I say, in some of this. And that was rejected by the Premier. And we're going to get so some of that a little bit further.

But the other two other issues, if I can get to them quickly, is I want the Premier to confirm that there was no engagement with Regular MLAs about the statement of consistency on a Private Member's bill. And a simple yes or no will do. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So I've spent most of my adult life here in the Northwest Territories actually supporting and advocating for Indigenous rights. I came up here in 1985 to work at the Dene Nation. It's kind of ironic I'm at the point now, you know, we've got this bill in front of us to try to implement Indigenous rights, and I've got very serious concerns about it. That is just -- I'm finding this very difficult. And I think part of it is the way the bill was drafted and put together.

You know, when I look at this bill, there just -- okay, part of the problem is that people conflate us MLAs as part of the Government of the Northwest Territories. The other side of the House is part of the Government of the Northwest Territories. That's the executive branch. But there's very little appreciation or understanding of what the legislative branch is all about and what the role is of Regular MLAs. You know, part of our job, and most of our job, is to actually hold Cabinet to account for what they promise, for what they say. Maybe once in a while we get some input into what they develop and bring forward. And that's the way consensus government is supposed to work. But I think it's going to be increasingly hard for Regular MLAs to do their jobs if the bill is passed in its current form. And the reason why I say that is because this bill will significantly -- as I said earlier is going to significantly change the way the House business, the legislative agenda, the work of committees; it's all going to change, and it's going to change -- it could change quite dramatically. And it probably should. But the Regular MLAs are going to be kind of kept in the dark about a lot of this, the way the bill has been put together. So, yeah, that's, I guess, one of my biggest fears here is the only role that I can see for Regular MLAs in this bill, other than our ordinary roles as, you know, making Member statements, asking questions in the House, you know, committees can invite Ministers in, public hearings, you know, we can discuss things, recommend things. But the only role in here is to get a notice if there's going to be a shared decision-making agreement negotiation starting. That's it. Or the Ministers identified as having some authority to go off and negotiate. That's the only role for Regular MLAs in the bill. But I'd like to ask the Minister am I misinterpreting something? Where else specifically in this bill is there a role for Regular MLAs? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I can't let this one go without raising some concerns and issues that I think are well reflected in the report itself. But I like this idea of a statement of consistency for government bills. I think government has the resources, and they can and should be doing this. The difficulty is that the way the bill was drafted is that requirement for a statement of consistency was also imposed on Private Member's bills without any discussion/consultation with this side of the House. And I'll confirm this when the Minister's up in the witness chair when we get to it but just no thought whatsoever. Didn't even tell us.

That's just not how this place is supposed to work. And I guess we did get some advice about this that this might not be -- or that it would not be -- I can't really talk much about it but we do have certain privileges in this House, and one of them is the ability to bring forward Private Member's bills.

In my experience in eight years, it's very daunting for an individual MLA to bring forward a Private Member's bill. The cards are stacked against you right from the very start in terms of yeah, we can access the assistance from a law clerk but we don't have departments. We don't have resources at our disposal to go out and do consultations on bills, discussion papers, What We Heard reports. Private Members don't have any of those kind of resources. So now adding on a requirement for -- sorry, and that's just the start of it. You know, and if Cabinet doesn't support your Private Member's bill, quite frankly it's a very, very difficult task to try to get it through this House. I want to -- hats off to my colleague from Yellowknife North who managed to get a Private Member's bill through amending the Ombud Act with the support of Regular MLAs even though Cabinet wouldn't support it. But the cards are stacked against you right from the beginning as a Regular Member on Private Member's bills. We don't even have proper procedures for standing committees to review them. It's very difficult. I just -- you know, and having tried it a few times, it's a monument -- and you really have to have a lot of discipline and gumption to actually get up and try to do it but sometimes that's the only way change actually ever happens. This bill is going to impose one more barrier.

Now Regular Members are going to have to do a statement of consistency, work with the law clerk. And I think that statement of consistency, when it comes to at least one of the items in the declaration, FPIC, free prior informed consent. How can Regular MLAs honestly say that they have done consultation with Indigenous governments about FPIC for their bills coming forward? It's just an impossible barrier to get over. Absolutely impossible. But Cabinet just threw it in the bill. Didn't even bother to ask us. I'm really upset about this. That's not to say I don't support this. But we don't have the resources to do this kind of work but just thrown in by Cabinet, didn't bother to talk to us. One more hurdle for Private Member's bills. I think I'll leave it at that, Madam Chair. Thank you.