Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 13, Devolution Measures Act. The passage of this legislation is one more step towards implementing the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement.
The Devolution Measures Act makes consequential amendments to almost two dozen territorial statutes in order to give effect to the Devolution Agreement and to address ambiguities or gaps that could arise from legislative initiatives required for its implementation.
The Devolution Measures Act amends several territorial statutes to reflect variations between the current Northwest Territories Act and the proposed new version contained in Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act. In particular, the Devolution Measures Act applies the more modern terminology in the proposed Northwest Territories Act, and updates cross-references to that proposed statute in territorial legislation. In addition, the Devolution Measures Act imports a provision from the current Northwest Territories Act respecting the detention of prisoners, and inserts it into the territorial Corrections Act to ensure against a legislative gap.
The Devolution Measures Act also updates cross-references in several existing territorial statutes to federal legislation that is being mirrored in implementing the Devolution Agreement, and the bill modifies the Financial Administration Act to integrate the public bodies continued by the mirroring legislation.
Finally, the Devolution Measures Act makes legislative amendments that have been identified as being legally necessary to implement the Devolution Agreement.
While the Devolution Measures Act focuses only on territorial statutes, similar consequential amendments are required in respect of a variety of territorial regulations, and these amendments are being made by the appropriate regulation-making authorities in the usual manner.
The parties to the Devolution Agreement entered into a Protocol for Review of Devolution Legislation. Under this protocol, all parties have had the opportunity to review and comment on this legislation before it was introduced in the Legislative Assembly.
I would be pleased to answer any questions Members may have. Thank you.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. I’ll ask the Premier if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.
Yes, I would, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. I’d ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort a new witness to the table.
For the record again, Mr. Premier, could you please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right I have Thomas Druyan, legislative counsel, Department of Justice. To my left I have Jamie Fulford, legal counsel with the Department of Justice. Thank you.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Bill 13, Devolution Measures Act. General comments. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on this and the subsequent bills here today, has the GNWT consulted with the Aboriginal governments regarding the contents of these bills?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. In every instance these bills were shared with our Aboriginal government partners for input and for feedback. Thank you.
Thank you. I note that Bills 13, 16 and 17 are not mirror legislation. So I’m wondering why we’re only seeing these bills now. Could they not have gone through some form of public review and consultation?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Fulford.
Madam Chair, unfortunately, with Canada’s legislative process in Bill C-15, many of the changes to the mirror legislation were not known until relatively recently and so we could not know with any certainty what further consequential amendments would be required to the GNWT’s suite of legislation. So that’s why you saw the first three bills, Bills 1, 2 and 3, we were able to come out of the gate quickly with those because they didn’t depend on any of the content of Bill C-15. With everything else, to a greater or lesser extent or just as a precautionary measure, we had to assume that further changes could be required. So everything else had to come later. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Fulford. Mr. Premier.
Further to that, Madam Chair, Bills 16 and 17 were not finalized until a couple of weeks ago. Thank you.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And yet we’ve heard that they’ve fully consulted with all of our Aboriginal partners. So, for this government not to have consulted with committee on this I regard as a major shirking of the responsibility of this government and I’m very upset about that. These are not mirror legislation. So, obviously, the Premier claims we have a consensus government here and clearly we do not. He has even said in their statement, all parties to the agreement. Clearly, we’re not regarded as a party to this agreement and neither is the public. So I just want to very clearly stress how shabby I think that process has been.
Specifically on Bill 13, Section 6 of the bill, somehow changes how legislators dissolve through an election, and if there is some clarity that can be provided to that. It’s probably a simple thing, but I don’t understand it. And I have a couple other questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 17, the Northwest Territories Resources Revenue Sharing Agreement, was an agreement that was negotiated amongst the Aboriginal governments themselves for their share or their agreement. The second part to his question, I’ll ask Mr. Thomas Druyan, through you, Madam Chair, to respond.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Mr. Druyan.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to Member Bromley. There were two major changes to the wording in this. One was to change the references to the Federal Governor or General-in-Counsel to the Commissioner and the other one was to change the references from 9 sub 3 to 11 sub 1 of the proposed federal Northwest Territories Act. Thank you.
Thank you. Did you want to just state that last comment if you could put it on the record, please, Mr. Druyan just about the changes? Mr. Druyan.
Sorry, Madam Chair, you’d like me to repeat that?
Just the last bit, please.
The second major change was the section number reference from 9.(3) in the current NWT Act to the new 11.(1) in Bill C-15. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Druyan. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you. Yes, I do see that. I’m just wondering if I can have a plain language interpretation of what that actually means. I know that I’m speaking to a legal professional here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Druyan.
Thank you. It almost seems to speak for itself that basically it is preserving the right of the Commissioner to call an election under the act in accordance with the timing requirements. So the new 11.(1) would be five years. In the old 9.(3) it would be four years, but that would be the other change, but that’s based on the change in the federal legislation. I hope that’s a plain language explanation. Thank you.
That was excellent. Thank you very much. Section 8, obviously, is a bit troubling in that anyone who is authorized to do something under GNWT legislation appears to be immune to any action under the Environmental Rights Act. This is not surprising given that we’ve had a recent inquiry and it was turned down under federal legislation with reference to federal legislation, but it seems pretty slippery. The intent of the Environmental Rights Act was for any citizens, to citizens in the Northwest Territories that have concerns, environmental concerns about a pollutant or a contaminant could bring that forward to the government. Now the government is saying, well, anything they permit, whether or not it’s a pollutant or contaminant, we can do it. Am I interpreting that correctly? Is this essentially doing the same thing as what existed before under what was covered under federal legislation and is now covered under GNWT legislation and, therefore, it’s impregnable? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Fulford.
Madam Chair, the intention there was with devolution and the mirroring process, there are a number of environmental statutes and other statutes that authorize people to do things. For example, if under the Waters Act someone is legally doing something right now under the Northwest Territories Waters Act, which is federal legislation, we don’t want, after April 1st, for that person to be doing something under the mirror Waters Act and all of a sudden they’re in violation of the law. So the intention there is to create continuity and to continue to make sure that people who are authorized to do those things under the law aren’t now in contravention of the law. Thank you, Madam Chair.
That’s fine for a legal person to say, Madam Chair, but we’re talking here in this House about what’s right and what’s wrong, I think. How will that be handled if there’s an improper contaminant being released legally, that would, I assume in some court of appeal I could argue is a real thing and that’s what’s meant to be dealt with by the Environmental Rights Act. By now negating the Environmental Rights Act, you’re leaving our public hanging when injustices are, in fact, happening. How do we deal with that?
Madam Chair, if someone is doing something that’s in contravention of the law or is not authorized by the law, then the Environmental Rights Act would continue to apply and the process there would continue to apply. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I note that the bill also amends the Boilers and Pressure Vessels Act so that it doesn’t apply to work or activity governed by the Oil and Gas Operations Act. I’m wondering why that is. The reason I ask is our communities now are governed by that, and as a result, they’re not able to have biomass boilers that produce electricity, for example. It would be great to get them an exemption if that’s in fact what this is, but perhaps it just means that this is covered under a different act. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, the Member is correct; it is something that’s dealt with somewhere else. Now, under the Safety Act there’s a set of regulations that will be adopted that apply solely to oil and gas occupational safety and health, so they are a complete code to occupational safety and health in the oil and gas industry and they apply to things like boilers and pressure vessels. You will notice that there are two other acts that have also been made inapplicable to those operations. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Fulford. Mr. Bromley, I will come back to you if need be for general comments. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I have a few questions here. I have to echo Mr. Bromley’s comments that without having seen these bills ahead of time, it’s difficult for us to understand them in the short period of time that we’ve seen them. The Premier mentioned that Bills 16 and 17 weren’t available until a couple of weeks ago. Well, even two weeks ago it would have been really helpful for us to get them at committee to at least look at them ahead of time.
I did want to ask a question with regards to the Premier’s comments on the bottom of page 1, this act “…makes legislative amendments that have been identified as being legally necessary to implement the Devolution Agreement.” Can I get an example of what sorts of amendments those are that are legally necessary? That doesn’t tell me what kind of amendments we’re making. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. What I said was those two agreements were just signed a couple weeks ago; I didn’t say that the legislation was prepared two weeks ago.
For the remainder of the question, through you, Madam Chair, I’ll ask Mr. Druyan to answer.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Mr. Druyan.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Obviously, everything in this act is legally necessary: changing the reference numbers, changing the title of acts. One item that was mentioned by the Premier in his opening statements was to avoid a gap regarding the places of detention, which is in the current NWT Act but has not been copied in Bill 15. Other examples are the changes to the Public Service Act and the Human Rights Act. Amendments are being made to those statutes in order to void any conflict between the Devolution Agreement and those statutes. In order to have greater certainty, we’ve put in those provisions to ensure that there is no possible argument about conflict. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Druyan. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks, Mr. Druyan. So it may be the way that I interpreted this statement. Maybe it means that all of the amendments that we’re dealing with here are legally necessary. It says, finally, it makes legislative amendments, so I assumed that there was some more.
I wanted to visit the amendments to both the Human Rights Act and the Public Service Act that Mr. Druyan has already mentioned. From what I understand, it references differences in pay between people who perform the same or substantially similar work, so it sounds to me like we are allowing for differences in pay between two people doing the same work.
Could I get an explanation of what these amendments are doing and why they’re necessary? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Fulford.
Madam Chair, under the Devolution Agreement there are provisions that create something called a devolution allowance, and it is something that is potentially paid to federal employees who are transferring to the employ of the Government of the Northwest Territories. The intention there is when they come over to the GNWT, they don’t suffer a loss in pay. So on a temporary basis, it, at least in theory, can result in those transferring employees making more money than someone in the same job classification. It’s exceptional but it is possible. Here, we needed to make sure that that didn’t give rise to a potential pay equity complaint or something of that nature. Of course, we had a need and a desire to have as many of the federal employees to come over to the GNWT as possible. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks to Mr. Fulford. That makes sense. With regard to that, though, is this a provision that will exist forever, or is it time limited? If it is going to be on the books forever, is it quite restrictive in who it applies to? Thank you.
Madam Chair, the devolution allowance itself is time limited, so its maximum extent is, I believe, five years. After that period of time there will be no devolution allowance for this section to apply to. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Fulford. Any further general comments?
