Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am here to present Bill 54, the Standard Interest Rate Statutes Amendment Act.

Bill 54 would make legislative amendments to adopt a standard interest rate that would be applied to all Government of the Northwest Territories overdue receivables. This proposal would lower the interest rate charged on receivables while linking the interest rate charged to the Canadian economy and monetary policy.

Currently, the interest rate applied under the Financial Administration Act and all taxation legislation varies creating an administratively complex situation leading to confusion...

As far as an Indigenous employee advocate, I am not sure if we have one, but we already have a Diversity and Inclusion Unit and an Indigenous Employee Advisory Committee.

As I said before, we are winding down the life of the 18th Legislative Assembly, and as the 19th comes in, one of their priorities may be to include this as they move forward. We will let them make that decision, but we have already taken some steps to address the Members' concerns. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We always want to try and increase the number of Indigenous employees within the GNWT, and I think that the government has taken a number of steps to do so. I think that the Member pointed out some of my past comments about merit, moving a lot of them along based on merit and what they bring to the job. In my career within the GNWT, and here in the Legislative Assembly, I have seen improvement.

The 19th Assembly, when they come in, can choose to take up this approach if they want, but I am not sure that changing the policy would be the best approach to increasing Indigenous employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is not very often you get to recognize a mother of your grade four classmate, and I am privileged to do that today. Visiting the Northwest Territories for the first time, I believe, in a long time, we have Ms. Jeanne Roska, whose son Clayton I went to school with in Inuvik. I believe her daughter is here, as well, Bernadette Vandenborn; and Edna Lorenzen is here, as well. They are all visiting the Northwest Territories, so we would like to welcome you. We hope you enjoy your visit, and we look forward to seeing you up in Inuvik sometime soon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, Mr. Chair.

I am glad the Member mentioned the 19th Assembly coming in. One of the pieces of advice that I passed on to the department is to try to have all of the work done before the 19th Assembly comes in, and then, once the 19th Assembly comes in, my advice to them would be to take something like this and deal with it right at the onset of the 19th Assembly. We spent a lot of time at the beginning of this Assembly on our 235-item mandate. Then we had the mid-term review. I do not think we really got much going until years three and four, so my advice to the incoming 19th would be to deal with a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the proposed Forest Act, the powers that have been contemplated that the officers would have are the ability to stop people when they are burning, for example, putting out campfires or other burning taking place and ask them to put out the fire, or the officer would have the authority to put out the fire themselves. Officers would also have authority to charge people with an offence that might include a fine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, this Assembly made a mandate commitment to improve food security in the Northwest Territories through the effective co-management of wildlife, including caribou. Our government is therefore taking significant steps with our co-management partners to support the recovery of our struggling barren-ground herds, including investing an additional $6.8 million over five years for conservation and recovery efforts.

The Bathurst and Bluenose-East herds have traditionally been an important food source for a number of our communities, and are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents entitled "Using the Tax System to Encourage Healthy Choices: Implementing a Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax in the Northwest Territories – What We Heard Report"; and "Inter-Activity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 (April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019)." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I agree with the Member that there need to be consequences for bad behaviour, and those who do things like that need to be held accountable for it. Having said that, in the proposed Forest Act, regardless of whether it's a fire ban or not, it outlines that individuals can be fined up to $100,000, corporations up to $1 million; fines could be doubled if there is a repeat offence that takes place. It also suggests in the act that, for each day the offence continues, it can count as a separate offence. Courts have the latitude to increase the fines if they feel it is necessary.