Thank you, committee. Clause 5. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Any other motions? Minister McLeod.
Thank you. Thanks very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. I move that clause 4 of Bill 43 be amended by adding the following after proposed clause 3.5:
3.6.(1) In this section,
"first offset year" means the period that begins on July 1, 2019, and ends on June 30, 2020;
"initial offset amount" of a taxpayer means an amount that the taxpayer is deemed to have paid under subsection 3.5(3) during October or April in the first offset year.
(2) For the purpose of subsection 3.5, in the first offset year, the months specified for a taxation year are October and April.
(3) For the purpose of calculating the initial offset amount, the percentage "25 percent" in subsection 3.5(3) is to be read as "50 percent."
(4) A determination by the Minister as to whether an individual is deemed to have paid an initial offset amount in the amount, if any, of the deemed payment is final and not subject to review or appeal.
(5) No portion of an initial offset amount is to be
(a) charged or given as security;
(b) garnished or attached;
(c) subject to execution or seizure; or
(d) retained by the Minister and applied to reduce any debt owing to the Government of the Northwest Territories or the Crown in Right of Canada.
(6) Notwithstanding this section and section 3.5, the Minister shall not make a payment in relation to an offset amount and no individual is entitled to receive a payment in relation to that amount after June 30, 2021, unless the individual's entitlement to the payment arose by reason of an assessment or reassessment made under the act on or before June 30, 2021.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. This is the first time I have seen this. I am not a Member of the committee, and having these sort of motions put before Members without seeing them, without even knowing what they're about, and then asking us to vote on it, I don't find this very helpful. I would appreciate an explanation from the Minister what this is about, because I have no idea. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Minister McLeod.
Yes, apologies, Mr. Chair. I should have spoken to this right away to give a bit of an explanation. The amendment allows the Canada Revenue Agency to administer a separate interim program that will allow a cost of living offset payment to NWT residents and families in October 2019 and April 2020. The differences between the interim and regular payments are that there are only two interim payments and four regular payments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed?
---Carried
Thank you, committee. Can we please return to the bill number and title? Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, to the bill as a whole. Does committee agree that Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act as amended is now ready for third reading?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Bill 43, as amended, is now ready for third reading. Does committee agree this concludes our consideration of Bill 43?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Thank you to the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, you may escort the witnesses from the Chamber. Committee, we have agreed to next consider Committee Report 31-18(3), Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment, Report on the Review of Bill 46: Public Land Act. I will turn to the chair of the standing committee for any opening comments he may have. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just some general comments. Bill 46 was referred to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment on March 12, 2019.
The committee sent letters inviting input from an exhaustive list of stakeholders, including municipal and Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, as well as a number of non-governmental organizations and stakeholders.
The committee travelled throughout the territory holding public hearings in Fort Smith, K'atlodeeche First Nation, Hay River, Fort Simpson, Fort Providence, Yellowknife, and Inuvik. The committee thanks everyone who attended these meetings or provided written submissions sharing their views on Bill 46.
The committee concluded its review of Bill 46: Public Lands Act on August 14, 2019, with a public clause-by-clause review held at the Legislative Assembly building. The committee passed 16 motions to amend Bill 46, of which 14 received concurrence from the Minister. The committee thanks Minister Sebert and his officials for their collaboration in the development of those motions.
Later, Mr. Chair, I will have committee motions regarding recommendations at the appropriate time. Individual Members may have additional comments or questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. I will open the floor to general comments on the report on Bill 46. The report is not the bill. We will have a chance to discuss the bill. Are there general comments on the report itself and the topics covered therein? Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know we are all under a lot of pressure to get this legislative backlog cleared out of here, but this is the first time I have actually seen the final report. It is the first time our colleagues in the House have seen this final report. To have it tabled or given to us earlier in the day and then expect us to actually review and debate it the same day, I just don't think this is a very good practice. I did not exercise my right to nay the unanimous consent; I could have. I just don't think this is good practice to do this, but I think it is symptomatic of the amount of work that Cabinet has forced on Regular MLAs with these bills. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Further to the report itself? Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Minister direct the Department of Lands to develop a Land Use Sustainability Framework implementation plan that more fully incorporates the principles guiding the department's mandate as set out in the Department of Lands establishment policy; further, this plan should clearly identify actions and associated timelines required to implement the Public Land Act, including the need for further legislative change; furthermore, it should also clearly and publicly articulate how the department's guiding principles and those in the Land Use Sustainability Framework will inform land-administration decisions; furthermore, that this work be prioritized at the start of the 19th Legislative Assembly such that it can guide the development of a process for engaging key stakeholders regarding the continued evolution of public land administration in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. There is a motion on the floor. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. This recommendation really speaks to a number of the problems that committee identified with the bill. The consultation process that the department went through in developing the bill was really about amending the Commissioner's Land Act and the Northwest Territories Land Act. Then, all of a sudden, out of thin air comes an act or a bill prepared by the Minister and his staff that amalgamated the two systems without any warning to committee or to the public about doing that very thing.
Committee also heard from Indigenous governments that they did not have the opportunity to review the bill or that this was not a co-development process for the bill before us, unlike some of the other resource management environmental legislation that we have dealt with over the last week and a bit. This sort of stands out in contrast to some of those other pieces of legislation.
I think the last thing that I will say about this is that there is no preamble. There was no purpose statement in the original bill, even though the department has a Land Use Sustainability Framework that it has developed over a period of time. There didn't seem to be any efforts to actually incorporate that or the department's establishment policy that sets out a number of principles around sustainability and effectiveness and efficiency and all those sorts of great things. None of those were incorporated into the bill despite a mandate commitment on the part of the department that they would find ways to develop systems or places where the Land Use Sustainability Framework would actually be implemented in one form or another.
This is a bill that arrived out of thin air without any kind of purpose and required a lot of work on the part of committee to try to bring it to where it could be. I think we were partially successful. You will see a number of recommendations here about trying to encourage the department, moving forward, to do things in a more collaborative fashion. I think that is really what is at the base of this recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. I will put the question to committee. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that future amendments to the Public Land Act include more robust protections for Aboriginal and treaty rights consistent with and improving upon those found in other devolution-related statutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I would suggest that Members have a look at the discussion leading up to this recommendation in the report now that it is before you. What committee observed was various approaches to trying to incorporate this idea of Indigenous rights into various bills. I guess the Public Land Act showed the minimum work with just a non-derogation clause, whereas some of the other bills actually tried to incorporate aspects of co-management or at least referenced land-rights agreements in their definitions or in the text of the bill itself.
This is trying to encourage Cabinet to develop a more consistent approach to recognizing and incorporating Indigenous rights and land-rights agreements and so on into statutes before they land here in the House because there doesn't seem to have been much consistency in the approach that was brought forward. This bill was the least successful in accomplishing that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the GNWT begin a phase 2 process of consultation on further amendments to the Public Land Act to be completed during the 19th Legislative Assembly that adequately addresses the concerns raised by municipalities and Indigenous governments and organizations, IGOs, in the review of Bill 46 and which find practical and meaningful ways, including co-management arrangements with IGOs to integrate these key stakeholders into the public land administration decision-making process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Once again, I would turn to the work that committee has done to point out that committee received numerous submissions, representations from community governments, including the Town of Fort Smith, Town of Hay River, City of Yellowknife, representatives from the Town of Inuvik, the mayor in Enterprise, the Northwest Territories Association of Communities, all raising a litany of issues in trying to secure and manage lands within their boundaries.
We heard about the difficulties of acquiring additional Commissioner's lands within municipal boundaries; issues around control and ownership of public land within municipal boundaries where land was being sold, transferred, or used willy-nilly without any notice to community governments; difficulties in getting adjustments to municipal boundaries; land withdrawal issues. What we heard was that, often, community governments would apply or request changes to boundaries, additional lands within their boundaries to meet municipal purposes, and they would just never get responses back.
I think that I would refine the recommendation a little bit myself to indicate that there needs to be a clear policy framework around how municipal governments, community governments, can request land, with deadlines, the need for written reasons if their requests are rejected, and to provide some certainty to our community governments, so that they can manage and acquire lands within their boundaries to allow them to grow and prosper, because our current system is not working.
The purpose of this recommendation is to attempt to get the Department of Lands to approach this in a more consistent manner and develop a policy framework to try to deal with some of these issues and assist our community governments in the growth and land management that they really desire and need to better serve their citizens. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed?
---Carried
Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for committee's information, what might have been in the people's package as the last one, I am moving that up to the next one. Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Lands make a commitment to amend the regulations flowing from the Public Land Act in meaningful consultation with interested Indigenous governments and organizations and the general public in accordance with the timeline set out in the Land Use and Sustainability Framework implementation plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. It looks like the motion is being distributed. The motion has been distributed. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. The purpose of this motion is to try to address this vacuum that exists about how regulations are going to be made in virtually all of the post-devolution legislation going forward.
Committee tried to secure some sort of understanding agreement of the Minister moving forward on how regulations would be developed, and once again, we were told that there would be some sort of mysterious government-wide approach developed that has not revealed itself so far. There is no assurance that the Indigenous governments, organizations, and the public, interested stakeholders, are going to have any level of engagement and involvement in the development of regulations on any of these bills moving forward, other than the oil and gas ones, because of some residual brilliance from the federal government in requiring gazetting of regulations. Unfortunately, our government, our Cabinet, has not seen fit to provide an avenue for public comment on regulations moving forward. That is what this recommendation is meant to deal with. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion, Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is consistent with other motions that the committee has brought forward, including amendments to bills that I will not reflect on further. This is an important piece of business moving forward into the next Assembly. We have this peculiar artefact in the Petroleum Resources Act that my colleague spoke of where there is a public gazetting process. The federal policy on this is to allow for public comment during gazetting, and in the case of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, outright consultation with Indigenous governments if any regulations are to be drafted and changed.
This is not foreign to the Northwest Territories. In fact, in regards to our co-management system, I think that something that everyone is comfortable with is the operation of the MVRMA, whether it is industry or Indigenous governments. I think that we must take a position on this, and the government has basically asked for time to figure this out. This needs to be one of the first items of business moving forward. Curiously enough, the requirements for notice and public comment in the Petroleum Resources Act was not removed from the legislation when amendments were brought forward to update the bill, and if that is so problematic, I am not sure why that wasn't done.
Nevertheless, it is important that this gets done and that we allow the public to be able to comment and at least see what these regulations are going to be, especially when regulations are the real meat to the skeleton of our post-devolution legislative framework. It is imperative that we give the public and Indigenous governments the right to be heard on these regulations moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed?
---Carried
Thank you, committee. Mr. Vanthuyne.
