Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: The Annual Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls June 2021. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Tabling of documents. Honourable Premier.
Tabled Document 428-19(2):
Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 520-19(2), Client-Focused Integrated Service Delivery
Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document; Followup Letter for Oral Question 52019(2) ClientFocused Integrated Service Delivery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS Section 2(1) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act prescribes that an Electoral Boundaries Commission be established within two years after the day fixed for the return of the writs of the 2015 general election; and,
WHEREAS section 2(2) of the act requires that the Commission shall be composed of a chairperson and two other members appointed by the Commissioner on recommendation of the Legislative Assembly; and,
WHEREAS the Legislative Assembly is prepared to make such a recommendations;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission, 2021, is hereby established;
AND FURTHER, that the Legislative Assembly recommends to the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories that the Honourable Ted Richard of Sydney, British Columbia, be appointed chairperson, and Mr. Glen Abernethy of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and Mr. Jack Rowe of Hay River, Northwest Territories, be appointed members of the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission 2021.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Motion is in order. To the motion?
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Motions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
WHEREAS the Legislative Assembly has established and appointed members to the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission 2021; and,
WHEREAS Section 9(K) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act enables the Legislative Assembly to establish guidelines or criteria that shall be taken into consideration by the Commission;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that the following guidelines are set down for the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission 2021:
1. The Commission shall review the existing electoral districts using the most recent and accurate census and other population data available.
2. In keeping with Canadian constitutional conventions, relative parity between electoral districts shall be sought, to the extent possible, except where special circumstances warrant exceptional deviation.
3. For greater certainty, "relative parity" means that the percentage variation between the number of persons in a riding and the average mean should be within plus or minus 25 percent.
4. In addition to whatever recommendations the commission may propose, the Commission shall recommend how the electoral boundaries should be drawn if the Legislative Assembly were to be comprised of a minimum of 19 Members.
5. The commission shall prepare an interim report with proposed electoral district boundaries for review by the public and discussion at public hearings.
6. The commission shall establish a website or other publicly accessible mechanisms, in addition to public hearings, to receive submissions on the existing and/or proposed boundaries.
7. All submissions to the commission shall be considered public documents.
8. Simultaneous translation of official languages shall be available at public hearings where the use of an official language in a particular community or region is sizable enough to warrant the employ of translation services.
9. If the commission is not in a position to accomplish its mandate within the existing budget allocated, it may return to the Legislative Assembly for additional funds; and,
10. The final report of the commission, complete with recommendations, shall be submitted in English and French to the Speaker and Clerk of the Legislative Assembly no later than twelve months after the commission is struck. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for KamLake. Motion is in order. To the motion?
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 33, National Indigenous Peoples Day Act be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, honourable Premier. Motion is in order and nondebatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Bill 33 has had first reading. First reading of bills. Minister of Finance.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 34, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 20212022, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Motion is in order and nondebatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 34, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 20212022, be read for the second time. This bill makes supplementary appropriations for infrastructure expenditures of the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 20212022 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Bill 34 has had second reading. Second reading of bills. Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters. Bill 25, Committee Report 1519(2), Committee Report 1619(2), Minister's Statement 16119(2), Tabled Document 41219(2), Tabled Document 41319(2).
I now call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Member for FrameLake.
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we'll take a short recess and resume with the first item.
SHORT RECESS
I now call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we agree to consider Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act. I'll ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to introduce the bill.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here today to present Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act. This bill seeks to amend the Education Act to allow a term of office of four years for elected district education authority trustees in cases where a DEA's community government has a fouryear election cycle.
Currently, only election cycles of two and three years for DEAs are permitted by the Act. The proposed amendment arises from the 2018 change in municipal election cycles in Yellowknife from three to fouryear terms of office for mayor and council.
Bill 25 would allow the two Yellowknife DEAs, Yellowknife Catholic Schools and Yellowknife District Education No. 1, to move to a fouryear election cycle and realign their DEA elections with municipal elections starting in 2022. The amendment will also allow the two Yellowknife DEAs to hold interim elections for oneyear terms this fall, as the current threeyear terms of the DEA members ends in 2021.
I am pleased to bring forward this amendment to support our education partners in ensuring the efficient administration of their board trustee elections.
This concludes my opening remarks. I would be pleased to answer any questions that Members may have regarding Bill 25. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. I will now turn to the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Development, the committee that considered the bill for opening comments. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on March 30th, 2021. It was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Development for review.
On May 31st, 2021, the standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and completed its clause by clause review of the bill. I thank the committee for their efforts when reviewing this legislation, and individual Members may have additional comments or questions at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister, would you like to bring witnesses into the Chamber?
Yes, I would.
Thank you. SergeantatArms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Minister, please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To your right is Mr. Mike Reddy, director of legislative division, Department of Justice. And to our left, making her first appearance in the chamber, Megan Wahlberg, director of policy, legislation and communications for ECE. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, and welcome. I will now open the floor to general comments on Bill 25. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. First off, I guess I'd like to say that I did raise I've met a number of the Yellowknife MLAs have met with the district education authorities here in Yellowknife, Yellowknife's Catholic School and YK No. 1, and we knew about the situation of how their length of term for their boards was now out of sync with city council. They requested that there be changes made to the Education Act to ensure that their term of office could be bought back in line again otherwise they'd have to hold separate elections from what the City of Yellowknife does and incur extra expenses, which I'm sure we would all rather see spent on education.
So, certainly, I supported that. I raised the issue in the House. I pushed it, even I earlier in this Assembly that this should get dealt with.
So I guess, first off, I'd like to know from the Minister and staff what consultation was done with the two Yellowknife school boards. And, for example, were they given a copy of the language in the bill? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There was extensive consultation with the Yellowknife school boards. I've had numerous conversations with the chairs of those boards as well. As to the question of whether or not they were provided with the proposed language, I will hand it over to Ms. Wahlberg but first I'll note that the consultation with education bodies, and consultation in general I think, is to figure out the what not necessarily the how. And so when it comes down to the particulars of the, you know, the words used in legislation, it's our job as the government to ensure that those words achieve 'the what' that the school boards want. But I can pass it to Ms. Wahlberg for further information. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Wahlberg.
Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you, Minister. It's not my understanding that we provided the exact draft bill to the Yellowknife education bodies. However, we provided them with the plain language wording of it and they agreed to what was provided. And we made sure that they fully understood the change in the wording and the way that it was impacting the amendments to the legislation. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for FrameLake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. So here's what I said in the House on February the 6th, 2020, about these bills when I was asking questions to the Minister of Education. The situation for CSFTNO, which is Commission Scolaire Francophone des Territoires du NordOuest, which is the Francophone school board, is different as I mentioned in my statement, in that its commission represent two communities that now have different cycles for their municipal elections. So I raise the issue that CSFTNO, based in the two communities, that there was an issue here, that I wanted to make sure that whatever changes were going to be made in the Education Act would not adversely affect CSFTNO. So can someone explain to me whether there was the same sort of consultation or consideration given to CSFTNO on development of this bill? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So there was definitely consideration given to CSFTNO and the effects of this bill would have on them. And it was our understanding that this bill would have no effect and, in fact, they expressed that they were in a different situation than the other school boards. They're in two communities, and they don't align their elections with either municipality. They have a different way of conducting elections. They don't require the same voters list and enumeration and things like that. But as it turns out, there are regulations that under the Education Act, that reference term lengths of other education bodies in education districts and that is really a remnant of when the French first language school board was created. And so in an indirect way, these changes will affect the CSFTNO. And, again, we know what they want, and it's our job to ensure that that that is ultimately achieved, so. Thank you, Madam Chair.
