Kevin O'Reilly

Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chair. That is not what I heard in committee, but I will take the Minister and his staff at face value. This could have still created a lot of duplication. It took 10 months for the department and the Minister to get federal concurrence, so this is a time-consuming process on their part. It's not what I heard at committee, but I will take it at face value. I don't think this was a good thing, to be messing around with a bill while it's before committee. I would like to ask the Minister: what are the next steps in terms of reviewing oil and gas legislation? This was step one...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Well, I am not sure I agree with the Minister's assessment. I believe that this is really certainly not in keeping with consensus government principles, to go off and seek federal concurrence while a bill is before the Legislative Assembly. I would like to get confirmation from the Minister and his staff: the changes that have now been made to this bill, they, as I understand it, they will require federal concurrence again. Is that correct?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a few brief comments, and I do have a couple of lines of questioning that I would like to pursue.

First off, I was quite surprised that committee received absolutely no submissions from industry. Not one. Nothing. There is no record of any submissions made to the department as part of their development of the bill, because all of the submissions are still available on their website. To me, that means that there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest on the part of industry in commenting on our regulatory regime that they are actually governed by. They don't seem to be...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have raised this issue, again, on the floor of the House. I don't actually agree with everything that is in the recommendation. We don't have to do a comprehensive review of oil-and-gas-related regulation.

This absolute liability cap is in regulation right now. The Minister could change this tomorrow if the Minister wanted, and this should have been within the scope of the changes that were made to these pieces of legislation. I don't understand why the department didn't flag this internally as a problem. Right now, the absolute liability cap is somewhere between about $10...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am not going to belabour this one, because I am going to wait for the Minister to come up, and he is going to answer some questions about this. The public does need to know that the department and the Minister went off and got federal concurrence on the bills, because there is a requirement that that take place under the Northwest Territories Act.

While the bills were before the committee, the Minister went off and sought federal concurrence before committee had even changed them. It is my understanding that, even with the changes that have now been incorporated into the...

Once again, the Premier didn't answer my question about whether he actually consulted with his Cabinet colleagues about this letter before it was signed and sent.

I explained in my statement earlier today that these pieces of federal legislation that the Minister cited have very little, if any, application in the Northwest Territories. Of course, the Premier knows very well that the Mackenzie Gas Project was assessed under three different regimes, and of course, it was done through an agreed-upon arrangement under those three different regimes. I suspect any transboundary project would be done...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I thought it was a relatively straightforward question, but it is nice to see the agreement at the table. I think that this is a complicated piece of legislation. I get it. What I would like to do, then, is get a commitment out of the Minister to provide Regular MLAs and maybe even the public a bit of an implementation plan for how this is going to roll out, but I would like to get that information before the end of this Assembly. I think that the public deserves to know, and industry deserves to know, how these changes are going to roll out. If it involves developing some...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today I raised concerns about a letter that the Premier signed with five provincial Premiers that threaten national unity. Can the Premier confirm that the document I tabled in the House yesterday is indeed the text of the letter that he signed on June 10, 2019, to the Prime Minister of Canada, and can he table that letter in this House? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So can the Minister or his staff confirm, then, that definition of "hydraulic fracturing fluid" that we changed in the bill, does that require federal concurrence, and, if so, has it already been secured? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. On June 10th, our Premier co-signed a letter, along with premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, to the Prime Minister of Canada. That letter warned that national unity would be threatened if the federal government did not accept numerous changes to federal Bills C-69 and C-48 as dictated by the oil and gas industry.

This action came as a total surprise to this MLA and many residents of the Northwest Territories. I will be the first to defend the Premier in expressing any personal views he may have on such matters, but he signed...