Debates of June 1, 2021 (day 77)

Merci, Monsieur le President. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nunakput, that Bill 29, Resource Royalty Information Disclosure Statute Amendment Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the following statutes to allow for the disclosure of confidential information respecting resource royalties for use in the development and evaluation of policy for the Government of the Northwest Territories to a Member of the Legislative Assembly or to an Indigenous government, Mineral Resources Act, Northwest Territories Lands Act, Petroleum Resources Act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. This is a private members' public bill that would change existing legislation to allow for the sharing of mining, oil and gas royalty information with Regular MLAs and Indigenous governments. A private Members' public bill is a bill that seeks to establish a new act or amend an existing act but is introduced by a Member who is not in Cabinet.

This bill which is the second private Members' bill brought forward by myself during my time as an MLA is designed to allow the Minister of Industry, Tourism, and Investment to share royalty information, subject to any confidentiality restrictions on its further disclosure. The information could be made available to regular MLAs and Indigenous governments for their use in the development and evaluation of policy.

The private Members' bill does not seek to create new powers with respect to mining and petroleum activities, nor create any new regulatory structure to government performance. The private members' bill does not allow MLAs or Indigenous governments to access any proprietary or financial information held by the private sector that has not been disclosed to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

The bill does not require or allow for the public disclosure of royalty information. With passage of this bill, MLAs and Indigenous governments would finally have access to information essential to development of regulations under the Mineral Resources Act. This is a first step towards greater transparency in reporting of the monies paid to our Government for resource development. Much more work remains to be done to ensure NWT residents know what the revenues are from development so we can better manage these resources for today and future generations. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Government House Leader.

R.J. Simpson

Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Cabinet is unable to support Bill 29. This bill proposes to amend three pieces of land and resources legislation. However, to date, there's been no consultation with Indigenous governments, industry, or the public on proposed amendments. Provision of the three acts without engagement does not align with the public's expectation of how the Government of the Northwest Territories should operate and is contrary to our agreements with Indigenous governments.

If the bill is referred to a Standing Committee, there will be opportunities for public engagement, but that process does not replace the thorough process that the Government of the Northwest Territories is currently undertaking to address this exact topic as part of a comprehensive policy and regulatory development.

The Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment is developing the Mineral Resources Act and regulations with input from all impacted parties, including the intergovernmental council, other Indigenous governments, the industry members that bear the risk from information disclosure, and other interested stakeholders.

Included as part of this holistic process, ITI has already begun an extensive review of the royalty regime which will include an examination of the level of transparency under the current regime.

In addition to our concern regarding the process for creating new law in this base, there are practical concerns, including the introduction of legislative changes without an analysis of potential policy implications and the potential efficacy of the changes.

Currently, royalties are reported collectively as an aggregate of revenues received. This information is made publicly available and can be used to understand how royalties impact the NWT fiscal situation.

Confidentiality clauses similar to the NWT's can be found in virtually all Canadian mining jurisdictions. We are not unique in this regard. That said, all extractive sector entities operating in Canada are required to publicly disclose payments made to all of governments under the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act.

Mr. Speaker, allowing this issue to remain together with the whole of the Mineral Resources Act to regulatory development is not only more practical and efficient, but best reflects the commitment of this government to meaningful consultation and engagement.

The GNWT is committed to a thorough, fair, and respectful legislative process. This includes respecting the processes and forums we have agreed to with Indigenous governments, including the intergovernmental council, and the continued sharing of information and engagement with the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment.

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, Cabinet cannot support this bill. We will be abstaining from the motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Thank you, Government House Leader. Motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to respond to some of the comments the Government House Leader made. This bill is not requesting public disclosure of royalty information, which is already something you can access through the federal legislation, although there's some issues in how that's reported, and but the Standing Committee on Economic Development working with the department wants to be part of that royalty review. I'm sure the Indigenous governments and the intergovernmental council want to be part of the royally review and the work ITI is doing. But right now, the government is not allowed to share royalty information with Indigenous governments or standing committees.

I don't know how either of those partners are supposed to be meaningfully engaged in that process if we can't know the royalties for projects, Mr. Speaker. I don't view this as some sort of step that's going to completely change the regulatory framework or completely change the disclosure of royalties. The Member's bill is not asking for public disclosure. I think that step would be best done through the processes that the ITI is currently conducting. But to ask that information be shared with Regular members and Indigenous governments as part of the review is not too much an ask.

And furthermore, the government can simply go to the royalty payers and ask for consent to share that information right now. And if they do that, then this whole bill would be pointless. But to date, we do not have that information, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.

Carried

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

I know call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of Committee Member for Frame Lake?

Thanks, Madam Chair. Committee wishes to discuss Committee Report 1319(2), Report on Review of the 201920 Northwest Territories Ombud Annual Report. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Committee agree? Thank you, Committee. We will take a short recess and resume with the item.

Short recess

Committee, we have agreed to consider Committee Report 1319(2), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 20192020 Northwest Territories Ombud Annual Report. I will go to the chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations for any opening remarks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Our report is read into the records. So I do not have any substantive comments to add. But I would like to thank the committee for their work on this report, and individual Members may have comments on the record and its recommendations. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I will now open the floor to general comments on the Committee Report 1319(2), Report on the Review of the 20192020 Northwest Territories Ombud Annual Report. I see no comments. Ms. Martselos.

Committee Motion 122-19(2): Committee Report 13-19(2) – Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2019-20 Northwest Territories Ombud Annual Report – Definition of Authorities in Ombud Legislation, Carried

Madam Chair, I move that this Committee recommends that the definition of "authorities" and the schedule be amended to use language similar to that found in the Ombudsmen Act Yukon and that a further subclause expressively include the Housing Association as established with the Societies Act. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When the Ombud Act was drafted, it appears the drafters went and took a schedule out of the Financial Administration Act, which sets out a number of public bodies. But for some reason, that doesn't include well, it doesn't include housing associations, which are not formed under the Societies Act. They're nonprofit societies that are agents to the Housing Corp.

I guess this is a larger problem, and I've asked the Housing Corp a number of times why we have housing associations and why we have housing authorities and the difference in the roles, and they've never been able to give me a clear answer. But they serve very much the same function, and people should be able to go to the Ombud when the Housing Association makes a decision that is not procedurally fair. So that simply does that.

And I guess the second thing is that by using the schedule and the Financial Administration Act that there is always different public bodies being created with various arm's length from government. But the most jurisdictions and we specifically pick the Yukon just provide a broad definition of government authorities that gives the Ombud some flexibility in deciding, you know, what public agency falls under their authority to investigate.

I really don't think there's any sort of floodgate issue here, and I think the Housing Association example is a prime example of why it's easier to just have a broad definition of who the Ombud can investigate. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes, someone who was here in the 18th Assembly when the bill was being reviewed, I think this was just an oversight on the part of folks that were looking at the reviewing the bill and the draft of it and so on.

The advantage of the Yukon definition is that it basically captures those organizations that are set up through legislation or and I'm not going to get all of the exact criteria right. But basically they are in one way or another almost an arm or a creature of GNWT. So I think the principle here was that and this was identified by the Ombud as something that was problematic. So when we set up agencies, associations through our legislation, that the Ombud should have the ability to review them. And that's what this does. So it just fixes an oversight from the last Assembly. Thanks. And I do support it. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. To the motion. Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Ms. Martselos.

Committee Motion 123-19(2): Committee Report 13-19(2) - Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2019-20 Northwest Territories Ombud Annual Report – Amendment of Section 17(3) of Ombud Legislation, Carried

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that Section 17(3) be amended to April 1st, 1999, and, further, that in use of clause being included that notwithstanding the temporal restriction if a complaint has records prior to this date, the Ombud has the discretion to investigate the new complaint in full. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. This was a major point of discussion and debate in the last Assembly. I think it's fair to say that Cabinet had to be convinced that this was something to move it forward, the Ombud legislation. And we had to pick a date. The Regular MLAs tried to push this back to April 1st, 1999. Cabinet wouldn't accept it. And so there was a stalemate of these I guess some Regular MLAs did side with Cabinet. I'm not going to go into those details. But this has become an issue. The Ombud has identified this as an issue in some of the investigations she has carried out, that she would like to have the ability to look at the entire record relating to a complaint. So that's why she suggested that her ability to look at records needs to go back in time.

And this recommendation would actually allow her to even go back beyond April 1st, 1999, if it's a longer termed dispute. Look. We want the Ombud to make, I think, the best possible recommendations for improving public service and fairness. So giving her the ability to look back in time is something I think that's essential. She's already identified this as a problem. I think we just need to fix this. So I support this. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. To the motion. Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Ms. Martselos.

Committee Motion 124-19(2): Committee Report 13-19(2) – Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2019-20 Northwest Territories Ombud Annual Report - Amendment of Section 23 of Ombud Legislation, Carried

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that Section 23 be amended to remove reference to the Director of Human Resources, and, further, that the reference to the conflict of interest commissioner be amended to Integrity Commissioner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Sorry. Ms. Martselos, can you please reread the motion.

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that Section 23 be amended to remove reference to the Director of Human Rights, and, further, that the reference to the conflict of interest commissioner be amended to integrity commissioner. Thank you, Madam Chair.