Kevin O'Reilly

Okay, thanks, Madam Chair. I'll try the second part of my question again. Will this bill enable the seizure and sale of Indigenous owned lands? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, we have you know, the Intergovernmental Council's in place now for a number of years; it's actually established through legislation. The Council of Leaders is in place, and that was through a series of discussions and negotiations led by the Premier, and I compliment her for that. Regular Members have actually been able to send observers to those meetings. I personally attended Intergovernmental Council meetings. They've actually asked me to say things once or twice. I actually give my colleagues in the standing committee written reports from my meetings. I share agendas...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change who seems to be the lead on the climate emergency. I asked this question in the last sitting about whether our government considers climate change a crisis or an emergency. The answer was, from the infrastructure Minister was, quote, We could be dismissed or polarized by individuals who are holding very different views, end of quote. That's why we don't do it.

So following the horrendous fires this summer, can the Minister now tell us whether this government considers climate change an emergency...

Madam Chair, I move that subclause 48(2.1) of Bill 74 be amended

(a) in paragraph (a), by striking out "in respect of the" and substituting "in respect of an"; and.

(b) in paragraph (b), by striking out "that is applicable in respect of the" and substituting "or zoning bylaw that is applicable in respect of an".

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, one of the concerns that we had raised to us in a written submission was how the Act would apply to, say, titled property and say areas where people have surface leases for various purposes. This legislation would seem to enable the department to issue forest licenses and permits on what might be privately owned or area owned lands or areas where the surface rights have been leased out. Is that the case? And if not yeah, I'll start with that. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. There's nothing in the bill about any form of public engagement on regulations. So earlier in my remarks, and I think in the committee report as well, at least a couple of the submissions said that the public engagement undertaken by the department was inadequate, that it was delayed, and it was for a very short period of time. And I'm just wondering what the department's learned from the public engagement on the bill and how they intend to apply that in the regulations? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So this is a 2.1 here is a new part of the bill that was added as a result of the collaborative review we undertook. And I think one of the issues that we found and this was raised in the last version of the bill in the last Assembly. It was raised again during the public engagement on this bill. I said this in the House at second reading. You know, what is the relationship of forest management as established under this bill, what's the relationship with land use planning?

We have forest ecosystem management plans. We have monitoring and research that's being...

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I want to speak to this one. I want to speak to the resources that this government actually got for forest management. The responsibility was, of course, originally held by the federal government and back in 1987, there was a devolution agreement for forestry negotiated. And this government, at that point, received an indexed offset to the territorial formula funding arrangement of $24 million. And so that was indexed over time. We asked the department about what that would actually be these days. We were told that it's about $55 million in today's dollars. So...

Thank you. I move that paragraph 127(z.01.1) of Bill 74 be amended by

(a) striking out ",and" at the end of the English version of subparagraph (i) and substituting a comma;

(b) striking out the semicolon at the end of subparagraph (ii) and substituting ",and"; and

(c) adding the following after subparagraph (ii):

(iii) respecting time periods within which plans must be provided.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. First off, I just need to get it clearly on the record I'm not raising any of this to delay or derail this bill in any way. I want this bill to pass, and I want it to pass in this sitting. I support the Legislative Development Protocol. I support the process convention. These are minor tweaks to the bill to improve transparency and accountability. This is about the public aspects of this bill. This is not about anything else. And I think it's a debate that we can and should have on the floor of this House. That's always been my objective as an MLA throughout my year...