Rylund Johnson

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I just will make some general comments on my thoughts. I think we as the government are in a pretty good place in implementing UNDRIP. We have a bill here before us today which is, you know, essentially identical to the ones passed by the federal government and British Columbia with a few minor tweaks. You know, there was a bit of a debate whether we should have done this earlier in the Assembly or a bit of a debate whether we should not have done it at all. I think, you know, getting it done within the life of this Assembly, considering it's a bill that you know...

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories in its capacity as a member of the action plan committee, advocate for the action plan committee to choose an independent person or entity to lead the fiveyear review of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories should, without delay, make all authorizations provided to a Minister to negotiate or enter into a shared decisionmaking agreement under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act publicly available by publishing it on a governmentmaintained website. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories should set up a funding framework to support Indigenous governments or organizations' capacity to engage with work to implement the declaration going forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 83, Liquor Act, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on March 30th, 2023, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review.

The standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Finance in Yellowknife on May 29th, 2023. The committee then hosted three public meetings in Inuvik, Norman Wells, and Yellowknife. The committee also received one written submission.

The committee heard a range of views from the public engagement not limited to alcohol addictions, bootlegging, community control of liquor, consumption...

Yeah, Madam Chair, I mean, I'm opposed to this, and I also just think it's very problematic what the Member's doing here. He keeps finding kind of weird hypothetical situations and saying there's no specific regulation making authority in an act that has one of the largest regulation making authority sections I've ever seen and, as the Member said, he's ever seen. And if this is how we're going to interpret legislation, it's highly problematic because most acts don't say oh, and you can make regulations in relation to this plan for the timelines of it, the ability to amend it, where it's...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. We've had this discussion lots in committee on a number of bills. I guess if it was up to me, I don't think I would legislate any annual report in any piece of legislation. We see that they are moving. We see that often you want different things. Sometimes reporting changes over time. I just don't view what the content of a report is as something that's really the purview of the legislature. Government is pretty committed to publishing more and reporting on far more. We just have added a lot of these clauses, it will cost a lot of government, and I just think...

I think that was a maybe, Mr. Speaker. And I get that when things are going through the Cabinet process, there's Cabinet confidentiality and you can't, as a Minister, you know, expose the outcome of that. I guess I'm trying to understand what is going to Cabinet potentially or could possibly. My understanding is we version one was an Indigenous employment policy and then a diversity and inclusion policy which added a number of new categories, including P2 and disability and sexuality and racialized persons. That was version 1. We went out, engaged on that. Version 2 essentially dropped the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Affirmative Action Policy that the GNWT has been in place for about 40 years and has seen little improvement in increasing Indigenous people. And, Mr. Speaker, I think before any review is conducted by the government, they have to ask themselves whether they're willing to actually make changes.

The Affirmative Action Policy is a bit of a political bombshell, Mr. Speaker, because I think there is broad agreement that everybody wants Indigenous Northerners to be priority one. And then, really, the question becomes what to do about P2s. And if the government is going to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 92, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Products and Carbon Tax Act, No. 3, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on June 1st, 2023, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review. The standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Finance on June 27th, 2023, and held the clausebyclause review on July 28th, 2023.

I thank the committee for their work in reviewing this legislation. Individual Members may have additional comments or questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.