Jay Macdonald

Député de Thebacha

Ministre de l’Environnement et du Changement climatique
Ministre de la Justice
Leader du gouvernement à l’Assemblée

Jay Macdonald a été élu député de la circonscription de Thebacha à la 20e Assemblée législative des Territoires du Nord-Ouest. M. Macdonald a été élu au Conseil exécutif de la 20e Assemblée.

M. Macdonald est né le 26 juin 1964 à Hay River, aux Territoires du Nord-Ouest. En tant que Métis, il a des racines profondes dans le Nord canadien, et son parcours a été marqué par diverses expériences qui ont enrichi sa vie personnelle et professionnelle.

La famille de M. Macdonald s’est installée à Fort Smith en 1970. Il a exploité avec succès son petit atelier de réparation de moteurs, fournissant des services essentiels à la collectivité et s’imposant comme un entrepreneur fiable. Simultanément, il s’est plongé dans les subtilités de la gestion des installations de loisirs, en supervisant les activités de l’aréna et du terrain de golf de la ville.

Pendant les 13 années où il a occupé le poste de directeur des services de gestion forestière à la Division de l’environnement et de la conservation du gouvernement des Territoires du Nord-Ouest, M. Macdonald a fait preuve d’un engagement inébranlable en faveur de l’environnement. Le rôle qu’il a joué pendant 12 ans en tant que coordonnateur du programme de parent d’accueil pour le Programme de leadership de l’Arctique de l’Ouest témoigne de son engagement envers la jeunesse. Pendant cinq ans, il a été parent d’accueil afin d’offrir un environnement stimulant aux élèves de Lutsel Ke qui fréquentent l’école secondaire PWK. Cette expérience a permis de mettre en évidence sa compassion, et a contribué de manière significative à l’épanouissement scolaire et personnel des élèves dont il s’occupait. S’appuyant sur son expertise de compagnon-technicien de petits équipements. 

M. Macdonald a passé 13 ans à la tête d’une concession Polaris et a servi d’instructeur pour l’entretien des petits équipements, la gestion du carburant d’aviation et les disciplines logistiques dans le cadre du Système de commandement d’intervention. Son engagement envers la collectivité va au-delà de ses fonctions professionnelles. En tant que bénévole dévoué, il a été président et entraîneur de l’équipe de hockey mineur de Fort Smith, et s’est efforcé d’encourager les jeunes et de leur inculquer les valeurs du travail d’équipe et de l’esprit sportif. Il a exercé ses talents d’entraîneur sur la scène nationale en dirigeant l’équipe des TNO lors des championnats nationaux de hockey autochtone.

En tant que représentant de la Nation des Métis de Fort Smith au sein du conseil d’administration de l’association scolaire de district locale, M. Macdonald a contribué à l’élaboration de politiques pédagogiques qui reflètent les besoins particuliers de la collectivité. En outre, il a été membre du conseil d’administration et président de la Commission de l’apprentissage et de la qualification professionnelle des métiers et professions des Territoires du Nord-Ouest, rôle lui ayant permis de militer en faveur de la reconnaissance et de la promotion des métiers spécialisés. L’engagement de M. Macdonald en faveur du bien-être de la collectivité est également confirmé par sa participation à diverses activités et événements locaux. Qu’il s’agisse d’être entraîneur au niveau amateur ou d’une autre forme de bénévolat, il a toujours œuvré à la création d’un tissu communautaire dynamique et cohésif.

En dehors de ses engagements professionnels et communautaires, M. Macdonald a une vie de famille bien remplie. Marié à Karen, il est fier papa de trois enfants et grand-père attentionné de trois petits-enfants. Pendant ses temps libres, il s’adonne à des passe-temps qui reflètent son amour du plein air et des vastes paysages nordiques comme le golf, la pêche et le jardinage.

Committees

Jay Macdonald
Thebacha
Bureau

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Boîte
1320
Ministre de l'Environnement et du Changement climatique
Ministre

Déclarations dans les débats

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a considerable amount of work is already underway toward the Trespass Act. An LP is being currently developed. A lot of research has already started to address the fact that, you know, all the provinces within Canada have a Trespass Act. Unfortunately, the three territories, as of today, do not. It's certainly a priority of mine, as I said, to push this forward as quickly as possible and I am happy to, you know, continue in that direction. Certainly, you know, respect the private Members -- or the Member's right to move forward with a private Member's bill...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Legal Aid Commission also has other lawyers that provide legal services and advice for folks that, you know, don't have resources or that need support. So this is also part of the outreach and with the intent, you know, is in January of 2025, we made some changes to the schedule to allow the lawyers that are travelling to communities to be available in those communities for longer periods of time, and also went in the direction of trying to make sure that, when possible, we were getting consistent representation, so the same lawyer was going back to the...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think the department has done a fabulous job of committing to, you know, improving our wildfire preparedness across the NWT.

We've increased human and financial investment. We have the community wildfire resilience contribution program that was launched this year and is offering just under $2 million of additional investment in FireSmart implementation for communities and organizations across the territory. We're actively working with communities to provide preparedness and mitigation training.

Additionally, we've been working closely with the NWT...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question.

You know, I'd like to start off by saying that, you know, it's early days in the season for 2025 and to date, one thing that our ECC staff did is they've already responded to ten fires in the Northwest Territories. And, unfortunately, of those ten fires, nine were human caused. I'm happy to report that all ten have been declared out.

ECC has also done a lot of work in -- that we scanned for holdover fires to ensure that we're able to properly and proactively address those. We have brought our firefighters on earlier and done...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this really does -- this question really speaks to the complexity of SCAN. You know, SCAN did come to this House previously, and I think, you know, as we looked at going through and redoing the SCAN legislation, a big part of that was ensuring that, you know, there was a detailed policy and legal analysis done to ensure that, you know, what was brought forward is appropriate for the NWT, it was sound legally, and in line with our jurisdictional best practices, you know. And certainly looking at the Yukon Supreme Court decision on how that would potentially...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I previously said, a lot of work is already started on this initiative and just prior to coming into the sitting today, I did have my staff reach out to the Department of Justice and ask them to provide me with an update on how quickly we could advance these three pieces of legislations quicker than the planned accelerated timeline that I spoke to yesterday. So happy to share that information with the House as soon as it's available. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for the question. Totally agree. I think that, you know, the three pieces of legislation that we've been targeting from the Department of Justice, the SCAN legislation, the Trespass Act, and the Civil Forfeiture Act, are certainly high on a priority list since I've become Minister of Justice and continue to have conversations with the department about moving these forward. And we've already accelerated the timeline from where it was originally proposed and, you know, we'll continue to work toward trying to bring that quickly to the House as...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that specific information available with me today. But happy to report that the 2023-2024 annual audit of the Legal Aid Commission will be tabled later in this session, and it will have, you know, a lot of the information that the Member's interested in and will provide further details on the work at the Legal Aid Commission. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the outreach office currently has one lawyer and one court worker on staff. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 57)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the MNP report that came out last year, you know, had a number of recommendations for the department, and we've agreed in principle with all of the recommendations that were put forward and we've already started planning or implementing many of them. You know, our crews and aircraft were brought on earlier to complete training. That was one of the recommendations. We've gone through and started to -- to the Member's point, you know, a collaborative effort with MACA and the rest of the GNWT to built capacity within the incident command system. We've recently...