R.J. Simpson

Circonscription électorale de Hay River Nord

R.J. Simpson a été élu à la 20e Assemblée, représentant la circonscription de Hay River Nord. Le 7 décembre 2023, M. Simpson a été élu premier ministre de la 20e Assemblée législative des Territoires du Nord-Ouest.

M. Simpson a été élu par acclamation à la 19e Assemblée législative et élu pour la première fois à la 18e Assemblée en 2015.

M. Simpson a été élu pour la première fois à la 18e Assemblée législative en 2015. M. Simpson a été président adjoint de la 18e Assemblée législative, vice-président du Comité permanent des opérations gouvernementales et président du Comité spécial sur les questions de transition. M. Simpson a également siégé au Comité permanent des priorités et de la planification, de même qu’au Comité permanent du développement économique et de l’environnement.

M. Simpson a habité à Hay River toute sa vie. Après avoir obtenu son diplôme d’études secondaires à l’école secondaire Diamond Jenness en 1998, il a décroché un baccalauréat ès arts à l’Université MacEwan et un diplôme en droit à la faculté de droit de l’Université de l’Alberta.

M. Simpson a précédemment travaillé pour le gouvernement du Canada, la Northern Transportation Company limitée, la section locale no 51 des Métis, et Maskwa Engineering.

Pendant ses études en droit, M. Simpson a été président de l’association des étudiants en droit autochtones. Il a également siégé au conseil d’administration du Centre d’amitié Soaring Eagle, à Hay River, et donne de son temps au projet d’éducation Canada-Ghana.

Committees

Hay River Nord
Bureau

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Boîte
1320
Extension
11120
Bureau de circonscription

62, promenade Woodland, bureau 104
Hay River Nord NT X0E 1G1
Canada

Phone
Ministre
Premier ministre des Territoires du Nord-Ouest, Ministère de l’Exécutif et des Affaires autochtones, Ministre de la Justice

Déclarations dans les débats

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Madam Chair. To your right is Mr. Mike Reddy, director of legislative division, Department of Justice. And to our left, making her first appearance in the chamber, Megan Wahlberg, director of policy, legislation and communications for ECE. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here today to present Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act. This bill seeks to amend the Education Act to allow a term of office of four years for elected district education authority trustees in cases where a DEA's community government has a fouryear election cycle.

Currently, only election cycles of two and three years for DEAs are permitted by the Act. The proposed amendment arises from the 2018 change in municipal election cycles in Yellowknife from three to fouryear terms of office for mayor and council.

Bill 25 would allow the two Yellowknife DEAs...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you can imagine, this has been a focus of the department for over a year now and the Public Health Act has been reviewed, other pieces of the relevant legislation, the everevolving case law, Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So, yes, all of these have been reviewed. And, again, this is similar to the "significant risk," the definition, this determination is made by the chief public health officer.

The department does provide advice on the risks associated with specific measures and orders, that is to say the legal risks. But in terms of the risks and what is reasonable...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Justice has a division called legal division and that is essentially the GNWT's inhouse law firm, and legal division provides legal advice and services to GNWT departments and entities such as the Office of the chief public health officer. And since the beginning of the pandemic, the legal division has been working with the chief public health officer to provide advice in respect of the drafting of they will suggest wording. There's probably, I'm sure there's been some back and forths to ensure that, you know, the wording is what it should be. With...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Madam Chair. This money is long gone; it's out the door.

Laughter

And there are discussions between, you know, our between ECE, people in the regions, people at headquarters and communities who are require infrastructure and so, you know, if a project wasn't successful for whatever reason, there are those conversations that have happened. So that work is definitely being done. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I've spoken with the chair of the CSFTNO and informed him that there exists this issue and that we will reach out as soon as this bill is passed and begin work on amending those regulations. And I've been assured that from the time that those consultations with the CSFTNO are complete, and really the consultation is 'do you want to remain with your threeyear term limit or do you want a fouryear term limit?' Once we're done with that, within two weeks we can have new regulations drafted and likely enforced.

And the reason this wasn't discovered, well, I can take that...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Madam Chair. There was extensive consultation with the Yellowknife school boards. I've had numerous conversations with the chairs of those boards as well. As to the question of whether or not they were provided with the proposed language, I will hand it over to Ms. Wahlberg but first I'll note that the consultation with education bodies, and consultation in general I think, is to figure out the what not necessarily the how. And so when it comes down to the particulars of the, you know, the words used in legislation, it's our job as the government to ensure that those words achieve...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Yes, I would.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure government lawyers are always worried about court challenges coming and so, yes, they have definitely considered the possibility of a court challenge since day one. You know, this is a very unique situation and no one knew how far orders could go at the beginning. There has been case law around Canada, not necessarily in the territory, that has tackled some of these issues and the department is watching that. But it's always on the radar. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 79)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in the Public Health Act, a public health emergency is defined as something that presents a significant risk to public health, and determining whether there's a significant risk to public health is the determination of the CPHO. The Department of Justice's lawyers do what they can but ultimately, they are not medical professionals and there's a lot of science involved in determining risk and so ultimately they of course have to defer to the chief public health officer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.