Question's been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that rule 7.2(7) be added. Under the term "oral questions", the clerk shall inform the Assembly of the follow-ups to oral questions received, deliver copies to the Members who ask the questions and have the returns printed in Hansard. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. Motion's in order.
Question.
Question's been called. All knows in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that rule 2.2(1) be deleted and be replaced with the following: 2.2(1) unless otherwise ordered, the sitting hours of the Assembly shall be as follows: A, Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; B, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.; C, Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. The motion is in order.
Question.
Question's been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that rule 2.2(2) be amended by replacing the words "at 6:00 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and at 2:00 p.m. on Fridays" with "at the designated adjournment time of a sitting day." Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. The motion is in order.
Question.
All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried.
---Carried
Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends the following rule be added to chapter 9: 9.1(15) when Committee of the Whole is considering a Minister's statement, questions relating to the content of the statement shall only be directed to the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The motion is in order. To the motion. Minister Semmler.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this committee recommendation. I've reflected on my experience both as a Regular Member and as the past chair of Committee of the Whole in the 19th Assembly. I've also considered where discussions like this usually take place in the Legislative Assembly and where there are several areas where this happens.
Mr. Chair, question period: Members have the opportunity to ask any question they like during question period. Members may use this time during question period to question Ministers about the statements they have made as this happens in an appropriate setting for those discussions. Recently, there has been a change to question period reducing -- well, we just talked about it -- reducing the number of questions. Adjusting this will allow for a broader range of topics and questions to be added during question period. With this change, Members will have more opportunities to ask questions, including those related to Minister statements.
Minister statements: It's important to note that Minister statements are often related to information that's already public or information that Members have already received. This may include data that is readily accessible online and, in many cases, Members can find this information themselves without needing to discuss it during Committee of the Whole time.
Standing committee technical briefings: Standing committee are allowed to request technical briefings at any time. These briefings offer a more in-depth opportunity to ask detailed questions about a topic and debt detailed responses from technical experts. Standing committees may also request ministerial briefings in which they can discuss the political implications of discussion or a decision or a program, service, or policy issue. These briefings can be public, ensuring Members have the chance to engage thoroughly and gain deeper insight into the issue and ensuring NWT residents have the opportunity to tune in on a particular issue of interest to them.
Efficiency of Committee of the Whole time: Committee of the Whole time is limited and a valuable time resource. It is essential that we use this time efficiently. If we make this rule change, we might end up spending excessive time discussing government programs, services, policies, issues that could be better suited for other forums and settings. Logistical challenges for department officials if Ministers are required technical support from department officials under these new rules may face logistical challenges. Requests for officials to appear may be made at the last minute. Department officials are busy and already have prior commitments. Asking them to rearrange their schedules at such short notice is unfair to staff and can disrupt their work.
Requests for guidelines and unanimous consent: If this rule change is approved, I propose that we work with rules and procedures -- or sorry, the new ADM of that committee. That's the last 19th Assembly's committee name -- to put clear guidelines in place. These guidelines would set a parameter of how these discussions can occur during Committee of the Whole ensuring that we respect the time of Members, Ministers, and staff. I would also request that an unanimous consent be considered by this committee as a requirement that we are to refer a Minister's statement into Committee of the Whole. This would ensure that all Members are on board and that the process is handled fairly. I also believe that, you know, if we were to do this, you know, this is -- this could be an opportunity, but it would be something that we would be prepared to be able to, you know, further have technical information on if we were going to bring it into Committee of the Whole. So those are just my questions and my -- to put those forward. I will be not in favour of this change. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Semmler. To the motion. Minister McKay.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be voting "no" against these two recommendations, so I thought it was important that I say a few words as I am a Member of this committee, and I felt it was only fair for me to explain myself.
As a Member and a new Member to the Legislative Assembly, we go sometimes into these meetings, and there's a lot of information, a lot of dialogue going on with all this stuff, and sometimes you don't realize the outcome of these recommendations until you've talked to experienced Members, past Members, and realizing the outcome of a recommendation like this. I believe that Members' times, employees' times are very important, and some of this work, when questioning a Minister's statement, having staff sitting around waiting for the resources to back up a Minister for witnesses and the information that goes with it, having them in the sidelines waiting for that questioning or when the Minister's statement's brought to committee, I don't think is well use of the time. So I do respect the process, and I do understand this, but as I -- again, as a new Member, as a new elected MLA, and understanding what the outcome would be now, I have a difference of opinion on the recommendation. So that's my explanation, and I just thought it would be fair to explain that to the Members as a new Member for voting against these two recommendations. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McKay. To the Member of Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. While I appreciate that we are, you know, have differences of opinion on these -- on anything and right now on this particular proposal to change the rules, the Standing Committee on procedures and privilege -- sorry, other way around. I know, many privileges, one procedure. But carefully considered this referral, and the impetus behind it is there's a rule currently, it is 5.3(3), and it -- under Ministers' statements, and it's any Member may, without notice, move a Minister's statement into Committee of the Whole for discussion immediately following the conclusion of Ministers' statements on the day the statement was delivered in the Assembly. So what that means in plain language is if a Minister makes a statement of, well, whatever they happen to do, but let's say it's a statement of policy that Members may immediately move that statement into Committee of the Whole, which is what we're doing right now, to discuss it at length. Now, the problem with this is there's no requirement for the Minister or witnesses to engage with this, and in practice, what has happened is the statement will come down to Committee of the Whole, Members want to have, you know, a robust discussion around its contents, and it would be one side of the House talking to itself essentially. And the desire of -- the intention of this rule is to allow scrutiny around statements of public policy that are coming forward. It's an ancient rule. You know, it -- and there's -- as the Minister pointed out, my honourable colleagues across the way, as they pointed out, like, there are other ways we get at that now, through standing committee, hearings and things like that. That being said, the idea that, like, this will be a kind of defacto thing, that as soon as a Member says, hey, I want the Minister's statement moved into Committee of the Whole, then it automatically comes here, that witnesses have to be called, that it grinds government to a halt, and wastes all this staff time, like, I think those are overblown because, quite frankly, if Members started to abuse this rule, there's a vote. This thing's not automatic. So, you know, if Cabinet feels or any Members of the House feels that this rule's being abused and it's a waste of -- or an unnecessary use of House time and resources, then vote against it. That's the safeguard. So we're not changing the rules in such a way that they can be abused because there's always a check on them. And, you know, quite frankly, in Committee of the Whole, we can -- I mean, I could move a motion right now and call a witness to come and sit here from the public service if it carries, right, but we'd still have to vote on it, and Cabinet could rightfully say, well, there's no -- you didn't give us any time or head's up so we're not going to -- we don't think that's a good idea, and we're going to vote it down.
So the problem we're trying to fix is this is kind of a vestigial -- this is the appendix. It's a vestigial part of the rules that doesn't have any practical application. So the committee's effort was to give it practical application in a way that would allow for robust debate around areas of public policy. And in this consensus government, the whole point is we talk a lot, and we talk a lot about the issues that are important to our constituents. We have more time as Members in this institution than any other parliamentarian in Canada. Maybe Nunavut is close to ours. But let's say for southern Canada, certainly we have more time than those assemblies and in parliaments. So that's the point here is we're here to talk about the issues, we're here to debate the issues. We're not here to just do government business. You know, there's two sides of this House, and at the end of the day, it's the people we serve, and our constituents want to see us have these debates. They want to see us raise issues on their behalf. They don't want us to just go through, call votes line by line on estimates documents. That's something we're going to do anyway. So I don't see what -- I don't understand the concern because, again, there's a safeguard built in here which is the up or down vote, and if this is ever used as a procedural tactic to filibuster or delay progress in this Assembly, there is a safeguard already built into it. So the effort here is to take, again, a vestigial rule that doesn't have much purpose and give it some new life and allow for more robust and engaging debate about public policy issues. And just because we hear it at standing committee, most of that work's in-camera. We can have public hearings, and people may tune in, but they also -- when we're sitting, the public's attention is on us. The media's attention is on us as well. And sometimes there is a statement of public policy that people want to talk about. And I think that we should leave that option available to the Members to decide how to use it rather than keeping it on the books as it is.
And I might add, even if we don't make this rule change today, there's nothing stopping Members from doing this, you know. And if we need to work -- if Members have this -- the desire for witnesses to be brought in, we can make those motions as well. I just think this would be a better way to do it where it follows fidelity with our process for reviewing estimates and bills rather than having it right now where we have Ministers who make these statements and say basically, you guys can talk about it, I'm just going to sit back, maybe I'll chime in. That's not the intention here. So I really think that we're raising alarms over nothing because, again, if it's -- if there's not a desire to use the rule, then it can be voted down. But the way it stands right now, we should get rid of it or make it useful, and the committee's goal -- the committee decided to try to make it more useful, and I do support that direction. I know that my honourable friend across the way from Hay River South was on that committee as well, and he's heard these submissions as well, so I appreciate what he is saying today, but I do fundamentally disagree. I think we should always err on the side of more debate in this chamber, not less, and we should not be giving way to the voices of our constituents for the business of -- or for the machinery of government. The people should come first, not the process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Member of Range Lake. To the motion. Recognizing the Member of Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess fundamentally the MLA from Range Lake has spoken quite well with respect to the issue. I mean, often we worry about convenience in the sense of, well, we could just move it along without proper tos and fros of good, valuable, discussion. And I think, really, the public's being denied this opportunity by this simple change. As he mentioned, we could do it through other forces by forcing it through through an actual vote, or we can make it part of the normal business given the fact that even if we don't do it, it's still there.
The -- I honestly see that currently now it's set up as a one-sided dialogue, and I think the public is truly being ultimately denied the dynamic conversation that's important. I won't go at length or even won't repeat what he said about the nature of our politics but just having this discussion even for the consideration of it is very important.
We always have other opportunities, and if Cabinet still feels it's being threatened in the sense of time or etcetera etcetera in the process wise, they could always write to the Speaker to say we feel the spirit and the intent of what this has been -- has never lived up to why the Members asked for it or why committee supported this, and we could clearly change it back. Because the whole idea from my view is is making these dynamic conversations. And it's frustrating hearing that people only say one thing -- say something once, and then they don't hear an answer later, and then they don't know why -- you know, people get mad at us and say, well, why didn't they answer that question? Well, they already spoke. Oh, well, that doesn't make any sense.
The last thing -- and this one's going to be a little bit -- what's the word -- prickly. I think that statement about wasting resources was about the most rich insult this side of the House has heard. And it's not directed at the Member because we heard the other person say it yesterday. I mean, yesterday alone in the gallery -- or sorry, in the Great Hall, we had the Premier flanked by six Ministers -- or five Ministers, and frankly, the frustration is is money's being spent in different types of processes, and we have no way of -- you're saying this is a waste of money having a witness available? The fact that tomorrow in the budget speech is we're going to see loads of deputy ministers, hundreds of thousands of dollars of brain trusts sitting there just listening to the finance Minister's speech, and all we're asking for is better witness engagement for a conversation. So I don't think the fairness of the dialogue is that we're intending to waste money. No one's criticizing you're wasting money. We're just trying to make these dynamic, fruitful conversations that we can share properly so that the public can see the value. And I'm sorry that may be sensitive, but having deputy ministers sit in the gallery for an hour, stand around for an hour, and all we're asking for is potentially one or two witnesses, even if we call upon them, is a bargain considering the value of the money that's being spent.
So, Mr. Chairman, I don't think that that's a fair statement by saying it's a waste of resources in any way. I mean, at that point, we might as well just only do Ministers' statements, and even those, I don't even know if we need to do them in here. We could shut down the whole process probably if it was all about the money. But it's not. It's -- it should be about the dialogue, the narrative of how we get there. So, Mr. Chairman, that's -- I think it's a missed opportunity for those who want this to be shut out, and it's those who decide that they don't like the process, which, you know, can extend question period, don't like this, don't like it. This is us trying to engage people in the process. So there you go. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the Member of Yellowknife Centre. I want to remind -- the motion was mentioned -- Members, please stay focused on the motion at hand.
Moving on to the motion. The Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly don't have as nearly as passionate opinion on this one as my previous colleagues but I would just say that, you know, as a Member of the committee, committee had a discussion about this, made the recommendation that we did and, you know, I was in favour of it there, and so I'll support it here and would just note that I think my experience of referrals of matters -- sorry, of Members' statements to Committee of the Whole so far is that a bunch of them have been referred. We've yet to actually debate one. It does seem like something that is not a big issue right now. And, certainly, as a Member of the committee, I would be happy to see a referral of this back if need be because the rule is being abused in some way or it's not providing the opportunity for the fulsome debate that my colleagues are speaking about. Certainly, this is something that can easily be referred back to the committee. It's definitely not the busiest committee in the Assembly, and we have the time to review such things. So I'd be happy to review it again. But I would just say, you know, committee made the recommendation. I'm in favour of following the committee's recommendation. I don't think that this one is going to cause as much trouble as some of the Ministers feel it might. And, you know, if there's any indication to me that that's starting to become the case, I'll happily be a part of reviewing it again and taking a second look at it.
But as the Member pointed out, the Member for Range Lake, I mean the rule exists already that Ministers' statements can be referred to Committee of the Whole so this is just putting some parameters around that and the debate itself that might ensue could potentially be more useful to the Assembly. I think it stands to be seen whether or not it's going to be used very much at all. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Frame Lake. To the motion. Recognizing Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I was a Member of this committee as well. I will be supporting the motion. Again, I'm not going to reiterate what all my colleagues have already said. I'm shocked that we're spending this much time on it given the, you know, the other fish that we have to fry in this building. Again, the opportunity to do it has already been there as my colleagues have said. I support the motion, and I'm hoping that we can move forward and have a vote. And, again, as Member from Frame Lake said if it gets deferred back, we'll take it back to committee (audio).
Thank you to the Member Inuvik Boot Lake. To the motion. Recognizing the Member Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to make clear that Cabinet doesn't have a position on this. All the Cabinet Ministers may vote the same way but there is no Cabinet position; this is a -- these are motions about how this House functions, and Members are allowed to vote as they please. We all have different experiences, and it's all very procedural.
My issue with this motion is that, you know, I've -- like one of the previous speakers, I've been a Regular Member, I've been a chair of Committee of the Whole, I've been a Minister, and so I have some perspective on things. And my concern about resourcing, it's not so much external resources; it's our resources here, it's our time. We often spend late nights in this House and often we're up against the wall rushing through very important things that we actually should be discussing, that could only be discussed here in this House. Things like the budget. Things like bills when we're at second and third reading. And what this is proposing here -- and you know, we don't know what's going to happen. Maybe it's never used. But we are talking about potentially adding more into Committee of the Whole when Committee of the Whole is time that can only be used for certain things. We have a number of standing committees. I think I see five chairs in front of me right now of five different standing committees. And so there's plenty of opportunities to have these discussions in public. Ministers are happy to get in front of standing committee. You know, there's always options to get in front of standing committee. Always happy to have the public briefings on different topics. And there's no concern about us having to -- Cabinet having to answer questions in the House related to statements. That's what we do in the House. That's pretty much the whole job of being a Minister in the House, is answering questions, whether it's about bills and budgets or during question period. So I actually agree with the Member for Range Lake. Let's get rid of the rule. We're trying to do something with it. Well, we can get rid of it. I think that's probably more utility than tacking this additional rule on here and basically taking something that can be done in standing committee and transporting it -- transplanting it back into this House. So I think that's about all the notes I have here. And I will agree with the -- I'll just leave it at that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Hay River North. To the motion.
Question.
Question's been called. I'm going to back up here, committee, and allow Member from Yellowknife South. Yes, please, go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the work of committee. I was relatively agnostic towards most of the recommendations and quite happy to just accept them and to -- yes, again, I'm not on the committee. It's a lot of work to go through these things. I'm glad they've done it, and I appreciate the recommendations. This one, obviously, has come up now, and there's been a lot of discussion. I have had a lot of opportunity over the last five years to sit in the witness chair during Committee of the Whole between different departments, particularly the Finance. It is actually a great opportunity for me to talk all about government because I get asked quite a range of conversations and quite a range of topics. I don't necessarily mind that, Mr. Chair, and so with respect to the idea that the rule as it exists would be one-sided. Mr. Chair, I'd probably find it pretty hard to sit on my hands if I had a room of Members making comments about a statement I had made, so I -- you know, I'm happy to try to see if the rule could work as it is, but outside of that I have to say I am swayed that this is not about deputy ministers' times. This is literally their job to come and do this stuff, and it's sometimes their job to come to this House and be in this House. I'm not worried about that. I am sometimes, though, worried that we do wind up -- and I've seen it happen repeatedly that right at the end of session -- we are rushing through things because it's taken so long to get through the items that are in COW. Not that the things that we're talking about aren't important but just that there's other places that we could have those conversations, not the least of which is question period, but also all the committee work that can happen throughout the entire year. And wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if the public had opportunities throughout the year through those processes to have a bit of meat on what is happening in this Assembly and in the government. And so I think I am swayed by that and will be voting accordingly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Member. To the question -- to the motion.
Question.
Question's been called. All in favour? All opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried. 7 in favour, 6 opposed.
---Carried
Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the following rule be added to chapter 9: 9.1(16) when Committee of the Whole is considering a Minister's statement, the Minister may have witnesses appear to supply information as required. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. The motion is in order. To the motion. Before I move on, Member for Hay River -- I keep getting them confused -- north, please go ahead.
You can be forgiven, Mr. Speaker. We've only worked together five years, come on.
Or Mr. Chair, I apologize. I'm just joking, of course. That's what happens. I get a little cheeky, and I get my comeuppance.
I just have a question, actually, and I know that it's not question period, we can't refer to questions here. But "as acquired" are the last two words here, and I was wondering what that means, "supply information as required." Is it referring to the Minister -- that witnesses may be there as required or that information may be supplied as required? I'd just like some clarity on this. Thanks.
Okay, thank you. I will take that comment and provide an answer to -- similar to the other processes we have with the Committee of the Whole where Ministers can bring in witnesses and witnesses are able to appear and supply information as required.
Okay, I shall go back to the motion. Okay, Member of Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for using your discretion, giving me another chance. I guess I was just -- it just, it seems redundant, and so I was wondering if there was something that I was missing. But maybe the chair wants to address that in closing comments on this item. Thank you.
