Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier when I asked the Premier some questions about progress on land claims in the spring, there was some perhaps minor optimism that she would sign a document in the life of this government. I'm just hoping the Premier can update this House whether there will be any signatures in the life of our government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize a former co-worker of mine, as well as a candidate for Great Slave in the upcoming election, and as well as president of the YWCA, Ms. Kate Reid. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we can all agree we hoped that progress on land claim and self-government agreements went differently in the life of this Assembly. Even in our own mandate, we weren't all that inspiring, hoping to settle two of those agreements. And here we find ourselves four years later with zero agreements concluded and many outstanding implementation agreements in ones that were settled over 20 years ago, Mr. Speaker.

Last time I asked these questions, Mr. Speaker, the Premier said she was hopeful that perhaps in the life of this government, a Norman Wells self-government agreement could be signed and an Akaitcho AIP agreement was out for consultation and, pending any issues, the AIP could be signed. I'm still hopeful. We got a one-month extension on this Assembly so perhaps some signatures were reached. I'll have questions for the Premier about whether there has been any progress on outstanding land claims and self-government agreements. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 92, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Products and Carbon Tax Act, No. 3, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on June 1st, 2023, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review. The standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Finance on June 27th, 2023, and held the clause-by-clause review on July 28th, 2023.

I thank the committee for their work in reviewing this legislation. Individual Members may have additional comments or questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 83, Liquor Act, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on March 30th, 2023, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review.

The standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Finance in Yellowknife on May 29th, 2023. The committee then hosted three public meetings in Inuvik, Norman Wells, and Yellowknife. The committee also received one written submission.

The committee heard a range of views from the public engagement not limited to alcohol addictions, bootlegging, community control of liquor, consumption in public places, and server training. The committee recognizes many concerns will be addressed through regulations.

On July 28th, 2023, the standing committee held a clause-by-clause review of bill and moved two minor motions advanced by the department.

I would like to thank the public for their time to meet with committee and for the committee's work on the review of this bill. Individual Members may have additional comments or questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, I'm sorry, everyone. I get where the Member's coming from. I know the government now has a standard kind of period for reviewing regulations. But I view this as no different than annual reports or mandatory legislative reviews. What happens is you get -- as a bill comes through the Assembly, you get sometimes these clauses are added, they have different wording, and then you find yourself where the government just has different obligations across a number of Acts. And when you look at them all, there's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just that one Member happened to get agreement from the Minister on, you know, child daycare and didn't get it on, you know, something like Financial Administration Act or another very important piece of legislation. So we just -- it doesn't actually lead to the consistency that the government should improve its public engagement on regulation process. They should do that as it applies to everything. They should improve their public reporting. They should do that everywhere. They should improve the way we review statutory reviews. But I don't see to do it one off on each piece of legislation that come up every 20 to 30 years. It just leads to inconsistencies. Thank you.

Yeah, Madam Chair, I mean, I'm opposed to this, and I also just think it's very problematic what the Member's doing here. He keeps finding kind of weird hypothetical situations and saying there's no specific regulation making authority in an act that has one of the largest regulation making authority sections I've ever seen and, as the Member said, he's ever seen. And if this is how we're going to interpret legislation, it's highly problematic because most acts don't say oh, and you can make regulations in relation to this plan for the timelines of it, the ability to amend it, where it's submitted. Sometimes it just says, you know, there's a plan and then there's a general regulation making authority. And to think you have to add every single specific section into an act just leads us down this path where we are here for two and a half hours passing motions that, frankly, no one cares about. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So we did initially amend this as has been discussed to include land use plans. And it's one of these clauses that as far as I can tell doesn't accomplish anything. Land use plans, if they are legally enforceable are legally enforceable, and they're under the MVRMA federal statute or another applicable land claim group. You know, we sometimes put these clauses in that just to remind everyone that other pieces of law exist. And I think that's exactly what the Member's trying to do now with zoning bylaws.

This one, I -- as far as I'm aware, we don't do this anywhere else in any GNWT statutes. It's not as clean cut to me as, you know, perhaps we issue a timber license and then the municipality has some sort of noise bylaw and you're running your chain saw. Are we now not in compliance? Is a violation of this act something we have to enforce because it didn't comply with a municipal bylaw? Municipalities have their own bylaws. They have their area of authority. Sometimes it overlaps, you know, with potential forestry activities. But if you're violating that, then they have their mechanism to find you and enforce it. It doesn't really make sense to me for the GNWT to go look through every single community bylaw and say well, before we issue this timber permit, we're going to make sure that we're in compliance with that. That's up to the municipality to enforce their own bylaws. Just, it's not really how it works in my understanding. I'm a little confused. I get the larger community plan issue and that we have to comply with community plans. To me, that's already done under other legislation that enables all of the legislative -- or all of the powers that municipalities have in the first place. I just -- I don't like adding clauses that confuse things more than they already need to. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. We've had this discussion lots in committee on a number of bills. I guess if it was up to me, I don't think I would legislate any annual report in any piece of legislation. We see that they are moving. We see that often you want different things. Sometimes reporting changes over time. I just don't view what the content of a report is as something that's really the purview of the legislature. Government is pretty committed to publishing more and reporting on far more. We just have added a lot of these clauses, it will cost a lot of government, and I just think there's a better way to tackle it. Thank you.