Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement and ask some questions about plans for amendments and changes to the devolution legislation we passed a year ago.
With devolution, we accepted the federal legislation holus-bolus. There were no changes to any of that legislation when we took it over. We put our name on it but we accepted it as it had been with the feds.
I’d like to thank the Premier for his commitment for us to look at all those pieces of legislation and for us to review them, but I’d like to know from the Premier, what is the government’s plan to review these seven pieces of legislation? Can a copy of this plan be given to Members and to the public? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since May 20, 2014, the public has had an opportunity to go online and review existing devolution legislation. We have encouraged all interested parties and Northwest Territories citizens to take the opportunity to learn about it a bit and understand the new authorities exercised post-devolution by the Government of the Northwest Territories. We have had two advertising campaigns, in May and November 2014. The review period was extended to enhance the opportunity for citizens to examine and comment on the legislation. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier for telling us what has been done. I asked what kind of a plan the government has going forward to review devolution legislation. It sounds from that, that maybe we’re done. I would certainly hope not.
These are very complex pieces of legislation. The education and the advertising campaign that were done, I think that’s great. We needed to advise people of that.
I’d like to know from the Premier, what consultation with groups has been done, or hopefully will be done, because I don’t think it has been done. So, what consultation is planned in order to gauge the interests of the public and organizations with regard to the changes that are required? Thank you.
There have been 2,091 legislative review website views. There have been 272 visits to the Q and A and comment page. Only two questions have been submitted for response. So in our view, the level of response, we don’t foresee any immediate changes to the legislation as a result of the review. Our expectation is that the responsible departments will review the 26 different married regulations and acts associated with devolution in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you. So I gather we have no plan. We’re going to turn the legislation over to each individual department. They will do what they will do. I’d like to suggest, again, this is very complex legislation, and I would also like to suggest that not everybody has access to a computer and asking the question by the computer does not lend itself to making suggestions for amendments to a complex piece of legislation.
So can the Premier indicate to me, if we turn this legislation over to individual departments, what kind of a time frame are we talking about? Can he give me any idea as to when we can expect some sort of a schedule, or an estimated time frame for amendments to these seven pieces of legislation? Thank you.
I should point out that the advertising campaign was focused solely on northern papers. I should also point out that devolution has only been in place for 10 months and previous devolutions when we’ve devolved and evolved, normally it would take about a three-year period. I know that we do have a process already for dealing with legislation and I expect it would go through that process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Premier, then I guess I would like to ask him to advise me and the public. I know there was a lot of concern about the legislation and that changes were needed. So can the Premier tell me and tell the public how they can get their views to the government, to individual departments so that legislation can be amended as necessary? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have already launched two advertising campaigns where we strongly laid out that the objectives of the review are to encourage the general public to better understand the legislative process associated with devolution and give them an opportunity to review the legislation and to ask questions of clarification.
We also have communicated an evolved process and the review was to gather initial public responses, questions and suggestions and also to provide the general public with an understanding of the legislative process for amendment of existing bills and development of new legislation.
We will be bringing forward a final summary report. So, all that information is available online. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
