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 when employing a technical working group, adequate time and resources are allocated for the technical working group to provide recommendations prior to the introduction of the legislation in the Legislative Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, this is where I spoke a little bit earlier about how sometimes certain parties didn't feel that they were allocated the appropriate time. This is about giving them the necessary time so that they can contribute, and as well as giving them the appropriate resources. Essentially, the motion speaks for itself. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. 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 when the Government of the Northwest Territories is preparing complex bills of significant public interest, the government should coordinate with the appropriate standing committee on the introduction of such bills to allow the public and standing committees to adequately consider the implications of each bill.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think, if anyone wasn't convinced that there wasn't too much legislation before the House, they should have been here last night at midnight. We've heard from observers who have said this is an unprecedented amount of legislation to be introduced so late in an Assembly. I can speak for the personal stress that it's given me, my family, and my friends. This is not healthy. We're not making good laws for our people. We're not making the best possible laws, because of the amount of work that we've had to accomplish in a very, very short period of time. I think this could have been avoided, and it could have been managed a lot better and timed and paced in a way that would have ensured we could better fulfill our duties as MLAs and served the public.
This is a suggestion, a recommendation, in looking at the legislative workload that it be done in a more collaborative fashion to look at the capacity of committees and so on.
We raised these issues about the legislative workload continually in the last half of our mandate with Cabinet. We would get these legislative initiatives listing what laws or bills were likely to come forward, and we continually raised this as an issue, particularly from this standing committee, Economic Development and Environment, about the back-end loading of all of the legislation. It really has resulted in, I think, less than what our citizens deserve. Next Assembly, please do it differently and do it better. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. 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 standards should be developed for the production of plain language materials to assist committees and the public in the review of bills, including appropriate reading levels, timelines for distribution, and what role the sponsoring department has in promoting proposed legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I think this is a motion that speaks for itself, but one of the experiences that we had was sometimes we were receiving plain language rather late. In some instances it was right at the day of us conducting a public hearing. In some cases, depending on the bill, we would receive plain language that came in the form of one document, and that would be fine, but then, when we would take a different bill on the road, we had plain language material for that particular bill that came in the form of five or six pieces of documents. There were times when the plain language was not that plain and, quite frankly, was pretty technical in nature, and so we believe that a motion to this effect would be most effective in getting plain language material, call it more unified, for the benefit all of the committees and the public. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. 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 each technical working group receive a comprehensive briefing on the legislative process and where the technical working group fits within that process; and further, this briefing should make it clear to participants that each bill undergoes a two-stage process, involving public consultation and development at the bill-development stage, led by the sponsoring Minister, and a second in-depth review, led by standing committees, once a bill is introduced in the Legislative Assembly, which can include public hearings, research, and independent analysis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think again you can predict where this is going. This motion clearly outlines some of the challenges that we faced while we were on the road when we were dealing or interacting with different stakeholders. The two primary instances are one, that they felt that they needed to better understand what this process was about, so we feel that having a comprehensive briefing on the legislation process would be very good for those who are involved in the technical working groups from their particular regions; and then, secondly, time and time again, no matter where we went, people felt that, frankly, we were the government, and they could not delineate between ourselves and the departments on many occasions, and so we feel that there is some better understanding that needs to be put out there, and this is what this motion promotes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. To the motion. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think in addition to the chair's comments about kind of broader public knowledge of what a standing committee is, what Regular Members do, and, you know, making it very clear that they are two branches of government, the executive branch that proposes legislation and the legislative branch that reviews legislation.
That being said, I support that, that rationale, but I think what this motion speaks to more directly is that the technical working group that is spending a lot of time in the drafting stages of this bill needs to clearly understand what happens next so that expectations are fairly realized throughout the process. Because what we do not want, I do not think anyone wants, is the idea that what's developed through a technical working group or what is developed at the preliminary stages of a draft bill is going to be the final form of the bill, barring any regulations that have to come.
You know, the legislative prerogative of the House and the standing committees needs to be a clearly identified process that comes next, and the changes that may be sought in that process need to be clearly understood because, again, we do not want to be in a situation where standing committee is told, "Well, you cannot change this bill now; you've just got to rubber-stamp it," because that would be infringing on the independence of the legislative branch. However, you also do not want to be on the other side, where the standing committee undoes a lot of the hard-fought battles that have been undertaken in the co-drafting process. So I think this is a really important idea or concept if we are going to continue to co-draft and continue to do it well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Next, we have Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I agree with what may colleagues on the committee have said here. We were getting correspondence from Indigenous governments, and after the closure date for public submissions, that wanted to submit additional information and, in some cases, actually better understand what the process was. So I think it became clear to committee that there was not really a lot of understanding of the legislative process and what the role is for standing committee. We are not the government. We are not the ones who wrote the legislation in the first place. Our job is to actually review it and seek to make improvements based on the input and the public interest. I think it's pretty fair to say that there wasn't a very good understanding of that amongst the Indigenous governments, all of them, and that some of them wanted to better understand the process and so on.
However, I think, although this recommendation is aimed at the technical working groups and so on, I think it's fair to say that the same applies to the staff in some of the departments. They did not understand what role standing committee had, and they did not really get what our role was and that we could actually propose and make changes to the legislation, the bills, as they went through the public review process. So that needs to be, I think, improved upon, as well. That is not meant as a criticism of anybody, but I think we just have to find ways to make sure that people understand what role the standing committee plays and that we respect the division between the executive and the legislative branches' functions of government. That is the way our government has been set up, and I think there could be a lot more effort put into public education around that. As I understand it, some of those issues are going to find their way into the transition report, as well, but that is something that committee had observed. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Next, we have Mr. Nakimayak.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know what, I am looking at this, and I had to look again. Mr. Chair, we have very capable research staff who are assigned to committees and do very good work. This, I think, almost takes away from them. You know, all of the educational stuff, I don't know what we are going to do. Like, say, the next government or the next committee, I don't know how we put educational stuff out there, but the next committee would have to decide that, and the next government. You know, all of this plain language stuff, we do get from our research, and it's very good. It's very high-level briefing notes and all that, and I really appreciate it. I just look at this, and I am, like, if we can't understand the language, then maybe we shouldn't be here, so I am really kind of worried about this. I am trying to convince myself that this is a high-level motion that would be useful. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Nakimayak. 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 Government of the Northwest Territories develop a standard process for how regulations will be developed for legislation that was developed under a technical working group. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We heard from IGOs and co-drafters, technical working groups, and they were generally very pleased and appreciative of the opportunity to co-draft legislation, but then felt that this would be also a very good collaborative process when it comes to regulation-making.
It was our understanding, when putting the questions to the respective Ministers, that that was going to be their intention on the most part, at least with regard to some regulations. We see that as very well-meaning and productive, but this would be a motion that provides some degree of formality to that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. 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, when a technical working group is used in the drafting process, the Government of the Northwest Territories conduct a collaborative lessons-learned exercise with technical working group members at the conclusion of the process, to provide recommendations on how it could be improved for future legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. The motion is on the floor and has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. In my opening comments, I mentioned how this is really a watershed moment in the development of legislation in regard to the environment and resources. We really do owe it to ourselves to take a close look at what kind of lessons we can learn from this.
I think that this report represents committee's effort, in the limited amount of time that we had, to put some thoughts together, but I think that it is at least equally, if not more, important to talk to the Indigenous government staff and Indigenous governments that were involved in this exercise and that people work together to find out how to improve the system, such that it was.
That is what the intent of this. I understand that this may actually be under way now. I am certainly very interested to see what the results look like. I think that this is a sound recommendation. Whether it is through a survey, a workshop, however it is done, it is something that I think would be definitely worth the effort. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Vanthuyne.
