Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up on my Member’s statement, I wonder if I could ask the Premier, given the absolute failure of the consultation effort to date on this sweeping legislation, seven acts that we’ve mirrored, adopted completely from the federal government, what will be the revised consultation program that he’s going to put in place? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It sounds like the Member is the only one that’s declared it to be a unanimous failure. I think this public review of devolution legislation is something that’s been ongoing for some time. Perhaps if I reviewed the objectives of the review, the Member might have a clearer understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish.
We’re trying to encourage the general public to better understand the legislative process associated with devolution, including mirroring and delegation, to have an opportunity to review devolution legislation and to ask questions of clarification, to communicate the devolved and then evolved process, to gather initial public responses, questions and suggestions about current and future devolution legislation, to provide the general public with an understanding of the legislative processes for amendment of existing bills and development of new legislation.
There have been 2,100 legislation reviews website views. Not one of them has complained about an inability to access the website and it appears the Member wants a Cadillac review version. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would just like to mention that I have probably accessed it a dozen times from my chair here, so that doesn’t tell us anything, Mr. Speaker. What we need is a meaningful consultation, a meaningful interaction, a discussion back and forth.
Who is going to interact meaningfully between a screen and themselves on sweeping devolution legislation like this that is complex and so on? Will the Premier get real and get a real process in place that starts providing opportunity for interactions with our public and making this northern legislation?
We are getting real. We are real. The Member talks about a glacial response to questions that are posted on the website. There were two questions posted on the website. The first one related to directors’ liabilities. The second one related to legal obligations for those wishing to bring pet monkeys to the Northwest Territories. The first question was answered and the response posted on the devolution website and the second question was handled by ENR. I don’t see where the glacial response comes in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Two questions. So we’ve gone from 2,100 now down to two. That’s an interesting leap. What the public is demanding and has demanded…and the Premier’s strategy of giving them a website to look at will work. Over time, people will lose interest, be disconnected from government and there will be no transparency as the Premier would like. Clearly, what’s needed is some real interaction.
Again, when will the Premier put out a plain language version of all these acts to people and put out word when the meetings will be, where they will be and give them a real opportunity to have some input and make this our own? Mahsi.
The Member is suggesting that there’s a groundswell of public who can’t wait to respond and review all this legislation. I see no evidence of that. We have committed to a final summary report that will be shared with the standing committee before the end of session. If committee is unhappy with the report, they can respond to it and we will take action. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a hard time being interested myself with the sort of response I get from the Premier. So, again, his strategy is working. The lack of interest is not real lack of interest; it’s a lack of opportunity to engage. So I’m saying to the Premier, what opportunities will he provide to engage with real people on real issues and make this legislation our own?
What changes to this legislation, what evolving is this Premier going to propose on the input he’s received to make it our own based on his earlier commitments, devolve and then evolve? What has he heard? What are the changes we are looking for from all those comments and where are they? Mahsi.
We will be producing a summary report, providing it to committee. Committee can respond to it. My expectation is that the responsible departments for the respective devolution legislation will review the legislation and, over time, they’ll go out to the public, seek input to the specific legislation, and that will be accomplished through transition, and also, we will fulfill all of the commitments that we made to devolve and evolve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
