Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This was a motion that was introduced at the committee clause-by-clause review of the bill. It was supported by committee, but the Minister did not concur for the reasons that he just provided, the need for flexibility and so on to allow for some commercial operations not to have security required of them. The wording of this would make it mandatory to some degree that for dispositions for commercial or industrial use, that financial security would be required subject to whatever the Minister sets out in regulations. There, again, is an opportunity for the Minister to set...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Once again, I would turn to the work that committee has done to point out that committee received numerous submissions, representations from community governments, including the Town of Fort Smith, Town of Hay River, City of Yellowknife, representatives from the Town of Inuvik, the mayor in Enterprise, the Northwest Territories Association of Communities, all raising a litany of issues in trying to secure and manage lands within their boundaries.

We heard about the difficulties of acquiring additional Commissioner's lands within municipal boundaries; issues around control and...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources on the crisis of the Bathurst caribou herd. In the last sitting in June I asked the Minister about a trip that he took to Kugluktuk to meet with Nunavut officials. He has since provided a copy of the agenda for that meeting. Can the Minister provide an update of any further discussions with the Government of Nunavut to protect the Bathurst caribou herd? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When decisions around financial security have flexibility, that is when problems start. I would like to ask the law clerk, if I may: the way that section 8(1) is written, it says, "The Minister may, in accordance with regulations, require that an applicant for disposition," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, "post financial security," essentially. Does this give the Minister the scope to set financial security requirements in regulation where there could be thresholds of activity that would require financial security? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This recommendation really speaks to a number of the problems that committee identified with the bill. The consultation process that the department went through in developing the bill was really about amending the Commissioner's Land Act and the Northwest Territories Land Act. Then, all of a sudden, out of thin air comes an act or a bill prepared by the Minister and his staff that amalgamated the two systems without any warning to committee or to the public about doing that very thing.

Committee also heard from Indigenous governments that they did not have the opportunity to...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions for the Minister before we get into other matters. Can someone explain to me why this clause would appear to make financial security completely at the discretion of the Minister? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This is the first time I have seen this. I am not a Member of the committee, and having these sort of motions put before Members without seeing them, without even knowing what they're about, and then asking us to vote on it, I don't find this very helpful. I would appreciate an explanation from the Minister what this is about, because I have no idea. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So, if I was to rewrite this, this is the one place where "polluter pays" should actually be found, and there is no reference to "polluter pays" in the purpose section. Can someone from the department explain to my why that is the case?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I support the motion. I think that at least it leaves the door open to the option of making further changes, improvements, to Cabinet's plan. This is a made-by-Cabinet approach. There are no details. It will be the next Minister of Finance who determines what the details are, in terms of rebates, grants, how the money is spent, and so on. All of that is going to be set out in regulation that none of us may have any say in, not even the public. I am fine with leaving the door open to the chance to develop a better plan.

We have talked about what has been done in the Yukon with...

Yes, thanks, Mr. Chair. I detect a certain amount of frustration here. This is not as if committee has not tried to work with Ministers, with Cabinet, to get to some sort of understanding of how regulations are going to be made in the future, given that, most of these bills, all of the details are off into the future. So, as my colleague said, we tried to adopt language from the MVRMA requiring consultation. We even tried to add permissive language to allow the Minister to enter into agreements with Indigenous governments moving forward on how to co-draft regulation or engage Indigenous...