Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh that Committee Report 5-18(2) be received and adopted by this Assembly. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Question has been called. All those in favour?
I'm sorry.
Oh, sorry. Member for Frame Lake.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I'll keep this very short; I know we've had a long day here and probably go for a bit longer, but I did want to acknowledge and thank the committee members who worked on this report. We've done a lot of work together. I think we've had more meetings than any of the other standing committees. It's a huge relief to me personally to have this off my desk and a lot of personal satisfaction. So I want to recognize the work of the committee members: the honourable Member for Thebacha, the Member for Yellowknife Centre, the Member for Nahendeh and the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
We did seek input from Caucus as well, all of the Regular Members, back in August on our retreat, and I don't think we shifted direction in any substantive way. We did look at the concepts of public engagement. We reviewed our current activities, how it's done in other jurisdictions. We've made some interim recommendations in here and we hope to do some further work.
I think it's really important that the public and the media understand the fundamental changes that will take place now in how we conduct our business as a result of the changes to the Guiding Principles and Process Conventions and the tabling of this report in this House. We are fundamentally changing the way that we do our business as a Legislative Assembly. I don't think it's actually sunk in for us all, but now the default is that we will do our business in public rather than in private meetings. We will continue to have private meetings where necessary but we will start off our meetings in public and they will go in camera but for specified reasons. That's a very fundamental shift in how we do our business, and I can't emphasize that enough.
I mentioned, though, at the conclusion of our report that we are seeking further input on matters, including what's really meant by public meetings; what sort of supporting materials are to be made public as part of standing committee meetings; deliberations and decisions by standing committees, whether those should be done in public and how they should be documented; committee correspondence, should that be made public; how we ensure consistency across our standing committees and how we should regularly review our public engagement and transparency as standing committees.
So we do welcome further input from the public, the media, and our Regular Members, of course, all Members of this House, and we do expect to have a final report in 2017. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to further discussion about these important matters.
Mahsi. To the motion. Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Committee Report 5-18(2) has been received and adopted by this Assembly. Masi, colleagues.
