Sorry, Madam Chair, about all of that, I'm confused as much as anybody else.
I move that clause 14.1 of Bill 74 be amended by
(a) renumbering that clause as subclause 14.1(1);
(b) deleting sorry, deleting paragraph (d) and (e) of that renumbered subclause and substituting the following:
(d) any forest harvesting agreement entered into under subsection 25(1);
(e) any extension or variation of the wildfire season declared under subsection 28(2);
(f) all wildfire prevention and preparedness plans submitted to the forest superintendent under subsection 45(2), any such plans resubmitted under subsection 45(3), and any hazard assessments conducted under subsection 45(5);
(g) all permits and licenses issued under subsection 48(2), other than those that authorize the holder to undertake activities set out in that subsection solely for personal purposes;
(h) any prescribed information.
(C) adding the following after that renumbered subclause:
(2) Before publishing a forest harvesting agreement under subsection 1(d), the Minister may remove from the agreement any of the following information, the disclosure of which would be prohibited pursuant to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act;
(a) any ecologically or culturally sensitive information;
(b) any information harmful to the financial or economic interests of a party to the agreement.
(3) Informations is not required to be published under subsection (1) if the information
(a) is prohibited from disclosure under an Act of Canada or an Act of the Northwest Territories; or
(b) is provided, implicitly or explicitly, in confidence to a person or body exercising powers or performing duty or functions under this Act, and is consistently treated as confidential information by the party providing the information.
Mahsi, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, this is a motion that was moved in committee. The Minister at the time said that he was not able to concur with it because we had basically run out of time. If people have views about this, I would appreciate hearing them, but it was supported by committee in during the clausebyclause review.
What this essentially does is add a few items to the list of information that is to be made public, and those are the forest harvesting agreements, and permits and licenses that would be issued for nonpersonal use.
We heard from the department that they didn't want all the permits and licenses issued because there was a lot for personal use, so we came back and said well, let's just we won't ask for those to be made public. We'll just ask for other kinds of permits and licenses to be made public. So that's the purpose for adding that one.
And on the forest harvesting agreements, I think the rationale from committee and I certainly supported this was that these are important agreements where we're giving rights to harvest lumber or timber to private interests, maybe even Indigenous economic development corporations, whatever, and because this is, you know, an agreement for harvesting that the public should probably know what is in that agreement because the government's negotiating isn't giving away those rights to some extent. At the same time, we recognize that there might be some information in those agreements that needs to be kept confidential, and that's the purposes of clause the second and third parts of the amendment I'm bringing forward here today. So it's really to expand that list of information that would be required to be made public.
And I think these are reasonable additions, and I think they're consistent with the kind of approach that was used in the last Assembly to create, in some cases very extensive public registries under the Mineral Resources Act, under the Public Land Act a lot more information is being made public. The public or sorry, the Protected Areas Act as well also has an extensive list of items that are being included on a public registry. So that's the purpose in bringing this forward, is to expand that list in the interest of transparency and accountability. And the argument might be made that this could happen later through regulations but I'm of the view that it should actually appear in the act because there's no certainty that it will actually happen in the regulations. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Member said, this is essentially the motion that was moved by committee. I supported it then, and I understand the Member's going to move to a couple motions that were already essentially moved by committee. I don't want to speak to the details of them. We spoke to them at committee, and the Minister responded. I guess I want to talk a bit larger about the process we're in now.
All of these motions and the motions we move, I don't think affect Aboriginal rights in any ways. I don't believe they go to the heart of what the technical working group tried to accomplish in the Forest Act. I do view them as kind of minor amendments putting obligations on a public government to be more public.
That being said, I can't find myself supporting them because I think it kind of undermines this entire process. We were fortunate to have a technical working group and a Minister work with us on committee to respond to a number of motions and make a number of amendments to the bills. And then I think now if the legislature essentially vetoes that process and says thanks for the negotiation, we're going to do it anyway, it kind of undermines everything we tried to accomplish here. And I think it puts the Minister in a tough spot where then at third reading, he has a bill that was not the bill negotiated at the technical working group and may, in fact, if, you know, these were substantive enough, just withdraw the whole thing and say I can't vote in favour of a different piece of legislation that I didn't concur with and I got instructions not to concur with.
Now, I know that in some way is kind of limiting the powers of this House, but to me it becomes a political calculation of when we should move motions that fail that committee again at third reading or Committee of the Whole. And to me, that is in very rare circumstances should we, as Regular Members who hold the majority, kind of usurp the negotiation process in committee. If that's what we're planning on doing, I think we're better off just reporting the bill not ready instead of kind of going around. And so that's my concern with passing all of these, is it then puts kind of an emergency meeting has to happen with the Minister and technical working group and say hey, you know those things you didn't concur with are now in the bill; where did you stand? Should I still be doing this? And god forbid, we then don't pass the Forest Act for the third Assembly in a row.
So I am very hesitant to move motions that did not get concurred with at the committee stage if the Minister was cooperative and if the department worked with us, and that is exactly what happened today. We had a lot of back and forth. We heard the reasons they didn't concur with them. I didn't always agree, but they were rational enough that it didn't cause me to think that we had to bring this motion and potentially undermine the entire process and all future negotiations on bills like this. So I can't be supporting these. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to echo what my colleague from Yellowknife North said. I want to respect the process of the intergovernmental working group in this. I think this is the exact example of where we did run out of the time at the end. I know that the Minister was open to having it go back, but we were just not able to have that fulsome conversation. It does speak to some of the motions we made or recommendations we made to have the conversations start sooner with the standing committee and having that be a lot more sort of fluid in that conversation back and forth between the three groups. And I think in the next one, we'll see that be even smoother and, as such, I won't be supporting this motion either. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As well, I agree with my colleagues as well that, you know, we if we can't have an emergency meeting on this, then to iron out the last details of this, I'm aware of what was being discussed on this bill. So as well, I will not be supporting this motion. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Thebacha.
Well, this is a first process convention that we're doing with the working group of these various organizations and, at the 11th hour, we get this amendment. And for clarity, too, I'd like to know if the amendments were discussed with the working group? They were?
You just need to speak to the motion. So Member for Thebacha.
I don't have any comments on it.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. Oh, Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do not support this motion. The GNWT previously agreed to a standing committee amendment that enhanced Bill 74 by including mandatory provisions to make forest management information publicly available on a website. This motion proposed to add more details, or more items, but further analysis and engagement with stakeholders is needed to ensure that appropriate information is posted publicly. I recognize it's maybe appropriate to post more information publicly, which is why the bill allows for additional items to be prescribed in regulations. With the Chair's permission, I would refer to Mr. Brett Wheler to provide IGC's technical working group's perspective on this motion. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Wheler.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. First, I just want to say that on behalf of the technical working group and Intergovernmental Council's secretariat, mahsi, and give some appreciation to all the Members of the Legislative Assembly for the process convention and for working through that together with us.
The collaborative process is set up through the Intergovernmental Council. They're extremely, extremely important, and they're extremely important tools for reconciliation, for recognition of the essential role that Indigenous governments have in land and resource management, and for respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples across the various regions of the Northwest Territories.
From our perspective, the current draft of the act, Bill 74, is a carefully considered and thoroughly considered process, including intensive collaboration with the standing committee. And while fully respecting the authority of the Assembly, it is fair to say that the technical working group of the Intergovernmental Council hopes that the act moves through this final legislative step intact and as is given the considerable and, we think, groundbreaking collaborative effort that has gone into it.
More work is needed to fine tune the details, but the technical working group believes that that will appropriately be done through the regulations. So, overall, the technical working group feels that Bill 74 properly and accurately reflects the goals and the objectives of the Intergovernmental Council, and we fully support the bill in its current form, and we believe no further amendments are needed.
We do fully expect and trust that this motion, and the topics raised under this motion, and all the other motions, will be carefully considered during the regulation making process. Mahsi
Thank you. I'm going to have to this is a new process for all of us. And so because it's a motion to amend a clause, the Members that can speak and so I didn't want to cut anybody off. But we're going to go call the motion again, and then we're going to have to go from there. Just because so to the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. I'll return sorry. There's a lot going on here. I'm going to pass it back to the mover of the motion to close the debate on this. Member for Frame Lake.
No, thank you or thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, we're kind of constrained to some extent by our procedures here, and we don't have the ability to have the kind of back and forth that we had in the technical sorry, with the committee meeting and in the clausebyclause review so I appreciate the difficulty of trying to do this sometimes in Committee of the Whole.
But I just wanted to have an opportunity to respond to some of the things that I heard, and I respect all the viewpoints that I hear in this House even if I disagree with them sometimes. It's certainly not my intention to try to delay this bill. I want this bill passed in this sitting as much as probably anybody else because I had to try to deal with it in the last Assembly.
So that's not my intention here. I think well, I don't think; my intention here was to bring forward the motions that we had in from the committee to actually get a full response because we ran out of time, as several Members have indicated. So now that I've got the response, that's better; I have a better understanding of where folks have landed. But I haven't really heard any specific response as to why we can't release forest harvesting agreements as a public document. I haven't heard why we can't make permits and licenses that are not for personal use available for public disclosure as we do with all kind of other permits and licenses, because I think that's only in the interest of making more transparent and accountable decisions. So, you know, in no way am I trying to undermine the process convention that was set up, the Legislative Development Protocol.
I had to live through all of this in the last Assembly and made some very strong recommendations in the last Assembly supporting where we're at. So I'm not trying to undermine any of this stuff. We simply ran out of time as a committee. And I believe it is in the public interest to have the kind of debate and discussion we're having right now on the floor of the House about whether some additional information should be made public in the bill itself. That's what this is about.
And I guess in my view believe me, I'm not going to speak for another ten minutes so, because I'm the only thing that stands between people and dinner. So in my view, though, a lot of this can and should have been fixed before the bill ended up with committee.
The issue of a public registry, more public information being made public, that was raised in the last Assembly with Bill 44. It was raised again during the public engagement by the Northwest Territories Association of Communities and the NGOs. I made the same comments at second reading on the bill, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. And I think those that issue of public information, of public registry, should have been fixed before the bill got here. But it wasn't. So we negotiated to a point where we've got a pretty short list, much shorter than I would like, and I think it's in the public interest to add these additional items. Clearly, it's not going to get support here, and that's fine. But I think it was worthwhile to have this discussion and debate on the floor of this House. And, Madam Chair, I think that's all I have to say.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hand. All those abstaining, please raise your hand. The motion is defeated.
Defeated
Clause 14.1, does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, I just wanted to explain sorry, because when we're speaking to a motion, we can't ask questions. But we can ask questions that's why we have the witnesses here. When there's a clause to that clause, you can ask questions. So if we that's the difference and the Minister and the witnesses can respond to questions from Members but once we go to the motion, only the Members can speak to the motion. Sorry, that was and that's what happened. So with that, we are going to take a recess, and we'll come back with the remainder of this bill.
SHORT RECESS
Members, we're going to continue on with the clauses from Bill 74, Forest Act, and we're continuing on with clause 15. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Clause 15.1. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So this is an addition to the bill that standing committee worked with the departmental staff and the technical working group on, and there's now a new requirement for an annual report from the forest superintendent.
Part of the reason for this was during committee's review of the bill and it was actually in submissions as well that there was some concern that this forest superintendent has really broad powers to help create or develop forest ecosystem management plans that needs to be done collaboratively with Indigenous governments and comanagement bodies, monitoring, research, a whole bunch of things. But all of that was kind of qualified by the word "may". And there was concerns raised about how much discretion this position seemed to have without any accountability. So committee thought about this a lot, and we came up with the wording that now appears in section 15.1, which is a relatively short list of things that the forest superintendent is now going to be required to report on. There's a lot of other things the forest superintendent will actually do. And I guess I'd like to get an explanation from the Minister as to how this list was arrived at. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
For that detail, I'll turn to Dr. Kelly. Thank you.
Dr. Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The technical working group worked through this very carefully and determined what they felt was appropriate to include in the Act. I would definitely say that there are concerns about the use of the of broadening to any research activities because some of there's a question about what that could ultimately mean and it could be it's quite broad. It could be unclear in the Act that it doesn't include, for example, the forest supervisor Googling things on the internet. So the IGC, as technical working group came up with what they feel should be in the Act itself. And we can always look at putting some of these things in at a later date. We already have reporting that is done annually on forest science and research that are done, and it's a commitment that we've made to continue that work. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Yes, thank you. With your permission, I'd ask Mr. Wheler to provide something from the technical working committee too. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Wheler.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. The technical working group for the Intergovernmental Council does share the concerns that were just expressed by Dr. Kelly, including the need for well, including the vagueness of any research activities. In general, the technical working group has been and continues to be open to improving the bill or improving on these factors, these considerations. But on things like this, we do think there's a need to carefully consider the details as part of the regulations to make sure we get things like the definition of "research activities" and get that right. And, you know, going forward in development of regulations, the Intergovernmental Council partners expect to be fully involved under the Legislative Development Protocol in that. Mahsi.
Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks for that. I guess I want to point out that the wording, you know, about research activities is actually not contained in here. We're going to get to that in a minute with a potential motion. But the other list of items here in 15.1, they're all kind of preceded with this language about it's a summary of. And then it's any activities, any forest ecosystem management plans, any monitoring. So, you know, this word "any" and the kind of activity, that's the way that it's presented in the list here. So I just want that clarified, but or I just think it's important to look at the way this was drafted as well.
I guess the other concern with this list from committee's perspective, and my perspective, is that there's nothing in here about inspection and enforcement. So where would the public have any sense of whether there's inspections being carried out, whether there's any enforcement activities being carried out? You know, people want to have some reassurance that if we're going to pass legislation that departments actually follow up and actually do the work and that they have the resources to do the work as well, because we don't want people doing things that they're not supposed to be doing. So where would the public find out anything about inspection and enforcement activities if the forest superintendent doesn't have to report on it? Where would they find that information and where is it in the bill itself? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
For that detail, I'll ask Ms. Bard to with your permission, I'll get Ms. Bard to answer that question. Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Bard.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that for some ECC programs that some of that information is available in performance measures, and ECC can look at that under the forest program. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, I hear that and that's sometimes those things are found in business plans that are public, but they're kind of buried in the detail of it. And I would have thought that we'd want to make that kind of information a little more public. And why, you know, wouldn't it be contained in the annual report from the forest superintendent who's actually largely responsible for doing inspection and enforcement. Why can't it be found in the annual report? Or at least be prescribed as one of the thingS that should appear in the annual report? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
