Kevin O'Reilly

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That wasn't my question. Is there anything in law that the Minister can cite that would be used as justification to exclude community governments from being able to request restricted areas? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is about this new provision within the act whereby the Minister is going to require notice of intended work so that there is some understanding of what mining companies get up to when they are out there on the land. I think that this is a good thing, and I am pleased to see that, in the spirit of reconciliation, this notice of intended work is going to be provided to Indigenous governments. I support that. The purpose of this amendment, though, is to include municipal governments in that provision for notice so that we can avoid land use conflicts, but they can...

Merci, monsieur le President. In my statement earlier today I noted that the publicly available end-of-life obligations for Cameron Hills fields seems to be over $12 million. Even if the Minister did not provide that information when I asked back in June, can the Minister tell us who provided that information on the end-of-life obligations for Cameron Hills, as found in the creditor protection proceeding, and how it was calculated? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's great. Is there anything that would prevent the reporting of royalties by each mine? I'm not talking about the calculation of those royalties, but disclosure to the public of an actual figure of the royalties remitted to our government by each mine? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I continue to respectfully disagree. I think that this is going to create confusion that there are two sets of rules that can apply within one zone.

I want to move on, Mr. Chair, to one other issue with regard to zones, and I neglected to raise it earlier. It is what I call the race to the bottom, where we could have Indigenous governments competing with each other to try to attract investment by having lower and lower standards. What is the department going to do to prevent that from happening? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Chair. This is to amend the regulation-making powers of the Minister to basically authorize the Minister to enter into agreements with Indigenous governments on how the regulation-making might be carried out under this bill. This is enabling. This does not require the Minister to enter into such agreements. I think this is a helpful amendment in setting out the ability for the Minister to enter into such agreements.

In fact, we actually heard from the Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated that there were efforts already underway to draft up some sort of memorandum of understanding or some...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. While I appreciate all of that, I just wish it was stated somewhere clearly in the bill.

Mr. Chair, we had this raised with us during the review. Can someone provide a clear definition of what "prospecting" is, and what can happen on a mineral claim, and what kind of prospecting or mineral exploration can happen off a mineral claim? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister explain why that isn't in here? Is there a rationale? Is there some reason why this could not be extended to community governments? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, we heard from the Minister that there was no policy rationale for excluding or not including municipal governments because they didn't actually hear that concern. I said earlier that committee certainly did hear this issue in its review of the bill. As I said, this is about avoiding land use conflicts, about ensuring that there's good working relationships moving forward, and this does not take away from Indigenous governments in any way, but I think it recognizes that municipal governments have significant investment in infrastructure within their boundaries, and want to know what...

Merci, Monsieur le President. In February 2015, Strategic Oil and Gas Ltd. stopped production in the Cameron Hills field in the Northwest Territories. It bought the operations from Paramount Resources a couple of years before that, and GNWT approved the assignment of regulatory approvals to the new owner. The field consists of 50 wells, winter roads, summer all-terrain vehicle trails, a gas and oil gathering system, a central battery, temporary and permanent camps, airstrips, borrow pits, and bridges. A class A water licence and a type A land use permit cover its activities in the NWT.

It also...