Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we have agreed to consider Committee Report 18-20(1), Standing Committee on Procedures and Privileges Interim Report on the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Administration of the 2023 Territorial General Election. I will go to the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedures and Privilege for any opening comments. Thank you, I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, pursuant to subsection 266(2) of the Elections and Plebiscites Act, the chief electoral officer must report on the administration and event initiatives seen through that office within six months following a territorial general election.
The Speaker tabled the chief electoral officer's report on May 21, 2024, in the Legislative Assembly and was subsequently referred to the Standing Committee on Procedures and Privileges for review and response. The committee sought public feedback on the chief electoral officer's report from September 2nd, 2024, to September 27th, 2024, receiving two written responses.
On September 27th, 2024, committee held a public briefing with chief electoral officer, Mr. Stephen Dunbar, and deputy chief electoral officer, Ms. Charlotte Digness. Mr. Aleksi Toiviainen of Vote 16 Canada also provided testimony at the public hearing,
Speaking specifically to the recommendation from the chief electoral officer to lower the Northwest Territories' voting age to 16.
Committee will continue their investigation into the recommendation of the chief electoral officer to lower the voting age to 16 and will provide a separate report in the 2025 winter sitting of the Legislative Assembly on their findings and the response to this recommendation.
Individual Members may have additional comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will now open the floor to general comments on Committee Report 18-20(1). I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly I want to thank the committee on their work and, of course, acknowledge the future work on this particular initiative. That said, under recommendation number 2 I just want to make a quick observation. This is an area I've seen for years, which is an opportunity for the chief electoral officer to engage with others -- other partners. This one specifically notes the NWT Association of Communities. I certainly support that. And I would also say there's a great opportunity to bolster and support the elections office by seeing if we could partner with Indigenous governments. And I want to stress, in both cases I don't believe the elections officer should be controlling their elections in the sense of process wise whereas they can assist them in the organization, the mechanics, the administration, and the CEO of elections could be treated as maybe a deputy officer of those organizations through the support mechanisms and whatnot. It would bring consistency throughout the process. It would strengthen everybody. As a matter of fact, it would probably lead to better training amongst everyone, and sharing resources and talent probably would help our election system at large and maybe even introduce more people to the possibility of a career.
When you have an election, you know, whether it's in a small community through Indigenous governments, I mean, you know, the start -- it's almost as if the system is there but it's such a restarting of the machinery after it had been quiet and parked off to the side for weeks, months, years, and, you know, we could be tapping in -- and, you know, I'll just say, for example, like, you know, you got the Tlicho election and you have the grand chief election, and you still have a chief returning officer and in no way would I imply and suggest we take that role of that officer away. As a matter of fact, we keep them in -- you know, we support them to be who -- the best they can be. But they tap into the machinery of an elections office, whether it's printing ballots, helping coordinate returning folks. Again, partnership is what I'm suggesting, not assume control in any form. This could then lead into municipal elections; again, supporting the main election officer in every municipality who wants to participate and see where it goes. Again, this is a blending -- it's interesting. We have silos of resources, talent, and opportunity. This is a great chance to, you know, bleed the lines a little bit, find ways to work together, amplify success, you know, strengthen weaknesses and, you know, harmonize our systems. It doesn't take away from the uniqueness of anyone because of course the chief electoral officer of, say, like for example the Gwich'in election that just happened recently, they would still, you know, lead their election but they would have the tools and functions and support teams and administrative teams to support them in their duty. So, again, it's a recommendation. It's just something that I think is we need to spend more time about it. We've been talking about it for years. I would go so far as saying I don't know how we do it, but we empower the CEO of Elections NT to make those connections and say, you know, let's have this discussion where we can do this. That's all I have to say at this particular time. But our people are our best resource so why keep them all separated when we could be working together. Thank you.
Thank you. Any further comments from Members? Okay, seeing no further comments from Members, Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Legislative Assembly direct the chief electoral officer to undertake a repeal and replace of the Elections and Plebiscites Act before the end of the 20th Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Members may wish to speak to individual motion. Each member can speak to each motion for up to ten minutes.
My apologies. Question has been called -- sorry, to the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion carried.
---Carried
Thank you, committee. Do you agree that you have concluded consideration -- I think it's Friday, and everyone wants to get out of here.
I'm going to go back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Legislative Assembly direct the chief electoral officer to engage with the Northwest Territories Association of Communities to determine how to better support local authority election activities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. The motion's order. To the motion. To the motion I have is the Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not going to go through everything I said under general comments, and my suggestion for consideration is I'd like to amend the motion by adding -- and I'll read out what I'm going to say is, we add Indigenous governments as well to determine; so in other words, after Northwest Territories Association of Communities, and Indigenous governments to determine blah, blah, blah. So I'm moving that amendment. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go -- the Member from Yellowknife Centre raised an amendment. Do the Members have any questions to the amendment? Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's actually just a process question. Do we need to pause to get the amendment in writing or can we just make them on the fly?
Thank you. Thank you, to the Member from Frame Lake's question, if Members want that in writing, we could -- we're probably going to need about five minutes and then we'll come back. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I mean, I can't speak for other Members. For myself, I think the amendment is simple and straightforward enough that I don't personally require it in writing. I just that that was a rule. But if we're okay, I'm happy to move forward and speaking to the amendment, I'm supportive of it.
Thank you. Members, to the motion, do you -- we could speak to the amendment. Do Members want to speak to the amendment and then to the motion. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.
Yeah, Mr. Speaker, first I want to stress an apology. It only occurred to me when I was making my general comments that, you know, this should be a consideration and hence I just saw this as -- when I said I don't know what the right vehicle is and I thought well, why don't I just suggest adding those two words to be inserted -- well, technically three words to be inserted after association of communities.
Mr. Chairman, this is only about opening a conversation and if they are not interested, that's okay too. So the amendment, whether it passes or fails, I hope it at least takes the conversation a little further that could the chief electoral officer be a partner. And so just for further clarity, I'll read -- I'll read and stress where the change would be.
So the chief electoral officer to engage with the Northwest Territories Association of Communities -- and here it is -- and with Indigenous governments to determine how better to support local authority election activities.
So, again, it's just the stressing about a conversation with them. And as I said, I sort of thought of it on the fly in my general comments that, you know, it might be an opportunity. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to ask Members to -- the amendment that was proposed by the Member from Yellowknife Centre, is there anybody -- Members want to speak to it? I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My support to include the amendment. Mahsi.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as a Member of committee that considered this report and that is making the recommendation, I can tell you we did have a robust discussion of the CEO's report where this was -- this idea was brought forward. Just now speaking with a colleague on the committee as well and we couldn't remember why we didn't include this, so I think this is -- I have no -- so I think this is a good motion. It's not saying that the CEO will insert themselves in, you know, sovereign government electoral processes; many Indigenous governments have custom election codes and they're governed through other authorities. But I think, as the Member says, as the mover says, having the conversation's important and we certainly don't want to leave Indigenous governments out of the conversation. So I don't see harm with this, and I will gladly support it. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Any other Members want to add to the discussion on the amendment? Question -- I'm going to have to -- we're going to -- motion to amend -- for the amendment change, all those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried. Thank you. The motion has been amended.
---Carried
To the motion as amended, is there any Members that want to add to that?
Question.
Question's been called. All those in favour to the motion with the amendment? All those opposed? All those abstaining? The motion is carried as amended.
---Carried
Okay, thank you, committee. Do you agree that you have concluded consideration of Committee Report 18-20(1), Standing Committee on Procedures and Privileges Interim Report on the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Administration of the 2023 Territorial General Election? Does committee agree?
Agreed.
All right, thank you. Committee, we have concluded consideration of Committee Report 18-20(1), Standing Committee on Procedures and Privileges Interim Report on the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Administration of the 2023 Territorial General Election.
We will now consider Committee Report 17-20(1), Standing Committee on Procedures and Privileges Report on the Rules of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly. I will go to the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedures and Privileges for any opening comments. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move that the chair rise and report progress.
Thank you. There's a motion on the floor to report progress. The motion is in order and non-debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.
---Carried
I will now rise and report progress. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Committee Report 18-20(1) and Committee Report 17-20(1) and would like to report progress with two motions carried, that the Committee Report 17-20(1) and 18-20(1) and, Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Can I have a seconder to the motion, please. Member from Yellowknife Centre. All those in favour -- or sorry, to the question -- or to the motion.
Question.
Questions's been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? Motion has passed.
---Carried
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha that Bill 16, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2025-2026, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you.
To the motion.
Question.
The Member for Yellowknife South. The Member for Kam Lake. The Member for Hay River North. The Member for Hay River South. The Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. The Member for Nunakput. The Member for Sahtu. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake. The Member for Monfwi. The Member for Great Slave.
All those opposed, please stand.
The Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. The Member for Yellowknife Centre. The Member for Range Lake. The Member for Frame Lake. The Member for Mackenzie Delta. The Member for Yellowknife North.
All those abstaining, please stand. Thank you.
Colleagues, 11 in favour, 6 opposed, zero abstentions. Bill 16 has passed.
---Carried
Please be seated.
Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker, Premier Simpson, Ministers, Members of the Legislative Assembly and staff, and visitors in the public gallery. Aqana Inuit, Drin Gwiinzii sha Gwich'in kat.
I wish to acknowledge we are gathered today on Chief Drygeese territory. We are grateful to be on this land and all the lands home to many Indigenous people, including the Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, Dene, Metis, and Inuit. I am honoured to be here for the first time in this chamber as Commissioner of the Northwest Territories.
I am looking forward to working with and getting to know the people of the Northwest Territories. I want to thank my family and my friends and the community for their support, and I hope I will make you proud. It is important that we all work together and support our communities and particularly the youth. Listening to the voices of the youth will make our future brighter for the Northwest Territories, and I always believe in acknowledging our future leadership, which is the youth, and I continue to support their endeavours in any way I can.
Now as Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, I am pleased to assent to the following bills:
Bill 7: Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2024
Bill 8: An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act
Bill 13: Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025
Bill 14: Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2024-2025
Bill 15: Northwest Territories Indigenous-Led Conservation Fund Establishment Act
Bill 16: Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2025-2026.
Ha’aii Cho, Quyanaqpak, Merci Beaucoup, Thank you.
