Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that Bill 38 be amended by adding the following after subclause 98(2):
"(3) The Minister may enter into one or more agreements with Indigenous governments or organizations in the Northwest Territories and with relevant renewable resource boards and land use planning boards or bodies, as to how the Commissioner in Executive Council will engage with those parties in exercising the regulation-making powers under this section."
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is being distributed. Once I receive a copy, I can determine whether or not it is in order. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion is about giving the Minister a new power to enter into an agreement with Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, and potentially with resource boards and land use boards, that are relevant to the particular regulations.
To enter into a formal agreement on how those regulations are going to work if the Minister chooses to do so. It is not a requirement for the Minister to do so. It does not put any restrictions on the Minister's authority. It is a new option for the Minister that, should the Intergovernmental Council come forward with a new model for co-drafting regulations, the Minister has a power in the law that will neatly fit into that agreement.
This could be in the act, Mr. Chair, and never be used, and it would not impact the operations of the act at all. However, I would hope that it would be used, because, again, this is something that the Minister has committed to work on and the government has committed to work on through the Intergovernmental Council, regardless of the disposition of any other motions raised today. We know that that is going to happen, and I think that what will emerge will be some sort of protocol, whether formal or informal. This allows that protocol to be clearly codified through the legislation, and I would expect we would see similar clauses like this in other resource bills that have been co-drafted.
This is, again, to respect the uniqueness of the co-drafting process, to respect the intentions of the Indigenous governments and the constitutionally-entrenched boards that have appeared before the committee and provided very clear indication that they still wanted to be part of this process. Some of what we have heard is that there were concerns in the co-drafting stage that they agreed that we would address later in regulation. During the co-drafting, the GNWT was very clear that not everything could be resolved today, but let's get the laws passed, and then we can work it out. That expectation is present. It is not a hypothetical. There have been very clear commitments. We heard today that the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment has brought forward a terms of reference for regulation-making authority under the Mineral Resource Act.
Things are happening, but it is unclear how they are going to happen. We still don't have clear certainty on how this is going to work, and it is important that we know, because, again, these bills are too important in signalling a new relationship for government-to-government relationships, not just for us, but as a model for the entire country. I think that we need to do whatever we can to put these government-to-government features into law, to clearly identify the legal framework that the Intergovernmental Council partners and Indigenous governments who are working collaboratively with the GNWT can exercise their opportunities to build that stronger relationship. Again, this is solely permissive. This is to give the Minister an additional power to make that relationship a reality.
Again, if the Minister didn't want to use that, he doesn't have to. It is not compelling anything. All it is, is giving the Minister a new tool in the toolbox to ensure that the co-drafting of regulations, if it is chosen to be done, is clearly set up in the legislation, and I think that that is a much more reasonable compromise, again, than requiring a full-blown section 35 consultation on any regulation-making. That is not what is being proposed here. This is a permissive clause, it is a new power, and I am looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about it, but I don't see this as particularly problematic. I hope to hear what other Members have to think.
To be very clear, this is a permissive new feature for the Minister to use; it is not a restriction, and it has nothing to do with non-government organizations or outside-the-territory groups, before anyone raises that concern. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. I just want to take a moment here to welcome all of the visitors that we have up in the gallery. It is rare that we have so many observers taking in our proceedings. It is clear that there is a lot of public interest in this bill. I just want to welcome everyone.
---Applause
To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. What I want to do is just read a sentence from a letter received from the Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated. This is a letter dated May 3, 2019:
"Therefore, the SSI maintains that the Sahtu Dene and Metis must have a substantial role in the development of regulations under the bills in a manner consistent with the operation of the working group with respect to the development of the bills. It is not enough for the GNWT to simply consult with the SSI about the draft regulations."
This is the part I really want everybody to pay attention to:
"To that end, the SSI and other Indigenous governments and organizations are developing a proposed agreement for the GNWT with respect to the establishment of a body similar to the working group, that would be activated from time to time to develop the regulations under the bills."
There, we have it in writing. There is something going on already with regard to developing an agreement. That is great. I am very pleased to hear that. I think it goes a little bit further than what I heard the Minister say with regard to how ENR is approaching this, but this is great. All this clause does is provide the Minister with the option, the ability, to enter into that kind of an agreement. It's not mandatory. It does not require the Minister do this. It just says that the Minister would have the option of doing it moving forward. I think this is an honest effort on the part of at least a couple of MLAs, and hopefully more will support this, to encourage the good working relationship that has already been developed moving forward and that people would get into an agreement and figure out how they are going to do this moving forward in developing regulations.
So I think this has been offered in a very constructive fashion. It does not take away from anybody's authority. Nobody is required to do anything. It just gives the Minister the option to continue this good working relationship going forward. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. To the motion. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said before, I made some comments before, but one of the things I want to point out, one point I wanted to make, is we are trying to pass an amendment here to give us direction to do something that we are already doing. We have a respectful arrangement and collaboration with our Aboriginal partners. We have bilateral meetings with them. Whether they signed on to the intergovernmental council or not, whether they signed on to devolution or not, we have respectful dialogue with them. We do not always agree with each other, but that makes the partnership a lot stronger. I find it disrespectful that we would want to have a piece of legislation to tell us how we should interact with our Aboriginal partners. We have been partners with the Aboriginal governments for a long time, and they will continue to work on that close partnership long after we are all done in the Assembly, and it happened long before us. I just want to say that we have a respectful arrangement with our Aboriginal partners, and that relationship will continue. We do not need to legislate our agreements with them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Mr. McNeely.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Part of our correspondence came through personal presentations, written presentations. I read out for the record one of the presentations that was sent to our chair of SCEDE on May 6th from the Sahtu Renewable Resource Board. At the bottom of the first page, it says in bold:
"ENR Legislative Development Process: While the SRRB, the Sahtu Renewable Resource Board, participated in ENR's technical working group for developing bills 38 and 44, this participation was not granted to SRRB until February 13, 2018."
I am not too sure of the timeframe of the notification of scheduling and so on, but the principle being they were sitting at the technical working group, so, as far as I can interpret this, they were notified and they participated. So that just gives me an example of the consultation through the engagement of the working group to produce their input. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Mr. Nakimayak.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the amendment. Like previous speakers, Mr. Chair, I am just going by examples here. The Inuvialuit Game Council and other parts of Inuvialuit have agreements with the Government of the Northwest Territories in our government-to-government relations. Also, there are impact benefit agreements that are confidential and should remain confidential. Earlier on on this bill, there is talk about a public registry. Things like that should remain confidential for Indigenous groups to negotiate with the Government of the Northwest Territories. I am looking at this. I think it's the fifth line down, and it says, what gets me:
"The Minister may enter into one or more agreements with Indigenous governments or organizations in the Northwest Territories and with relevant renewable resource boards and land use planning boards or bodies, as to how the Commissioner in Executive Council will engage with those parties in exercising the regulation-making powers under this section."
Mr. Chair, Indigenous governments are making regulations with the government. We cannot go all the way. We know that. There is a time and point where the governments and Indigenous governments must lash off so that we can continue making regulations and law, and this is where we sit today.
This has potential to give less power to those Indigenous governments that are advocating not just here in our country but around the globe on wildlife, on ivory, on seal. This has a possibility to impact our rights as Indigenous people to advocate for what we believe in and to protect our way of life. I think this is far too much, and it does not give any room for the governments to move. When there are no margins and we are restricted, it could possibly have a negative impacts for us as we sit around the table at the international maritime organization looking at regulations on marine shipping, on heavy fuel oils, on plastics and that.
So I think we need to respect what's in the document. For those reasons, Mr. Chair, I am not going to support this amendment. Thank you.
To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I certainly appreciate the mover's intentions, and one might think that by me supporting the previous amendment that the presenter put forward that not supporting this one might seem odd, but the previous one was clearly a case where I felt that the Minister would give notice about a change in regulation, allow the opportunity to hear from the governments on that regulation, and then may consider it if he or she so wishes.
In this instance, as the presenter has suggested, really this gives the Minister another layer of power if he shall so choose. However, the concern is, with me, on "the Minister may enter into one or more agreements" sets a particular expectation from any reader of this particular law to say that they will expect that the Minister will go down this road. I feel that that might even put some possible undue pressure on the Minister if that were to happen.
This act is layered throughout the whole entire act with the opportunity for engagement, and I would argue or suggest that the act in its entirety in fact is about the coming together of governments in the interest of developing protected areas. So, while I appreciate that a number of Indigenous governments and stakeholders identified the need to be further involved in regulation-making and I fully appreciate that, I still think that this act unto itself will allow for numerous opportunities for the government to be engaged, and they will certainly let it be known what their thoughts and feelings are on how regulations should pan out at the opportune times of when they consult as it relates to this act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. To the motion. I will allow the mover to close debate. Mr. Testart, to the motion.
If I could just ask a point of clarification of our law clerk.
Of course. You don't need to ask me. If you can ask it, you can just go ahead and ask it. Mr. Testart.
Mr. Law Clerk, looking at the full amendment and the effects it would have in the legislation, does this in any way restrict section 35 rights of Indigenous peoples, or impact the beneficiaries land claim agreements in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is quite a large question. What I can say is that the intent of the wording here is just that, which is that the Minister may or may not enter into agreements with Indigenous governments. As to how the Commissioner and the Executive Council will engage with those parties, "engage" is obviously a different word than "consult." I believe that was likely intentional by the drafter so as not to import the baggage. I don't mean that pejoratively, but there is a large connotation that comes along with the word "consult." With that, that answers your question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you to my colleague who just handed me a piece of paper. Mr. Chair, again, we've had a spirited debate around this. Some comments are based on what correspondence was received by committee members during the committee review, some have been based on concerns raised around this, and some have been based on information that's not represented in this amendment.
I want to address the Minister's comments. The Minister said that we have these arrangements and these agreements, or these relationships in place, and we don't need to legislate those; and yet, we have an intergovernmental council that is legislated. An intergovernmental agreement is a legal agreement that council would set up to manage the relationship between devolution partners. There's no real need for a new body according to that logic. We have bilaterals. We've heard members from land claim organizations speak to the strong bilateral relationships between their organizations and the GNWT, and yet, we have an intergovernmental council. We chose to do something new. This legislation is an opportunity to do new things as well.
This is something, I'm not making this up. It's not the honourable Member for Frame Lake writing a dissenting opinion and deciding, let's go our own way. We presented the supporting evidence from the committee hearings. We presented the supporting evidence that we heard directly from Indigenous people. This was something that was asked for, and I think the previous amendment was a stronger one than this, but on this one, at the very least, again, it creates a clear legal path for how we want to move forward on co-drafting. Whatever process emerges from the intergovernmental council and the bilateral conversations that occur, great. Come up with something everyone can agree with, and then move forward with this new power.
The Members who have raised the concern that this creates an anticipation that the Minister will use this power, well, the Minister is creating that expectation, and his colleagues in Cabinet are creating that expectation, by going out and putting out terms of references. This expectation already exists. It started as soon as the technical working group was assembled, and the expectation has been repeated time and time again in written submissions, in public appearances, and that's been collected in committee's report. The submissions we received from the public are some 200 pages. This bill had a great deal of public interest, and more importantly, a great deal of interaction of both the government who drafted the bill, and Indigenous partner governments, and the committee who reviewed the bill and Indigenous partner governments. Every aspect of this institution, its executive branch, its legislative branch, has been working in partnership in respective functions on Bill 38. These are just improvements we found, and I feel very strongly that we have been given very clear indication that something like this is exactly what the expectations are that are out there. Yes, there can be another process that's identified, and perhaps that will be superior, but it would have been nice to know that going ahead. It would have been nice knowing more information about the co-drafting process. I commented a number of times that I had learned more in three weeks than I had in three years on co-drafting because most of that process was almost a tightly guarded secret.
It is nice to see this process play out, but, with incomplete information on how we're going forward, we're doing our best to put the aspirations of our partner governments into legislation.
