Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that Bill 46 be amended by adding the following after clause 61:
61.1 (1) A copy of each regulation that the Commissioner on recommendation of the Minister, or the Commissioner in Executive Council, as the case may be, proposes to make under this act shall be published in the Northwest Territories Gazette, and a reasonable opportunity shall be afforded to interested persons to make representations to the Minister in respect of the proposed regulations.
(2) No proposed regulation need be published more than once under subsection (1), whether or not it is altered or amended after such publication as a result of representations made by interested persons as provided in that subsection.
(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to any regulation continued under section 62 of this act.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. It's deja vu all over again. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order, and it is being distributed. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I don't want to prolong this, but this is the age-old debate of Regular MLAs trying to ensure that there is an opportunity for the public to have some engagement or opportunity to comment on draft regulations in another post-devolution bill moving forward.
We have raised this issue numerous times in the House. Cabinet has not developed any kind of framework or approach for this, and we are trying to respond to what we heard in committee from Indigenous governments, from municipal governments, and NGOs about their interest and willingness to try to work collaboratively with the departments on regulations moving forward. Why this keeps coming back is a lot of the details in these bills have been shunted off to regulations that are going to come at some future point in time, and Cabinet just does not want to open that door to allow for public comment on regulations. I don't understand what the problem is. This wording is virtually identical to what already exists in the oil and gas legislation that we now have in place or are about to have in place as a result of the federal government having these provisions in their legislation, but our government that talks about open government and being transparent and accountable does not want to give our residents that kind of opportunity.
If the Minister has anything else he would like to say about how his department intends to engage Indigenous governments, the public, and NGOs on regulations move forward, I would love to hear it. There was a commitment made at clause-by-clause review committee, by departmental staff, that that was going to happen. I did not hear it from the Minister, and it's not required by statute, so all of this again is at the complete and utter discretion of Cabinet moving forward, and I just do not think that that is a good place to be. That is not what our residents have asked of us, and this is another attempt to do that in the context of this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. To the motion. Minister Sebert.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion would require things such as land withdrawal orders to be pre-published, and we have some concerns about that, that it could lead to people obtaining interests in areas before they are off limits. For example, rumours of land withdrawals have led to mining staking rushes and the creation of interest that withdrawals are intended to prevent. Now, the motion mentions the Gazette, but that is an antiquated form of public notification. We do have the Gazette. I was over around lunch looking in the library. It does actually exist there. I do not know how many people actually look at it. I would say very, very, very few, so I do not think that formalizing a Gazette process is really very helpful in spreading the information. The department intends to involve the public, Indigenous governments, and stakeholders in its regulation-making process, and we will use more modern and accessible methods like online submissions and open houses to do this. So I think there is a better way to get this information out, and, for that reason, we cannot support this motion. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Looking at this priority, I guess is the best way to put it because it's consistent with, as you said, Mr. Chair, at the top, déjà vu, the first approach committee took was to copy the MVRMA and say let's do full engagement, one step less than consultation, with Indigenous governments by providing them notice. That was not palatable to government, so we said, okay, let's look at a different approach. We went to the PRA, which was not amended. This section is identical to that section. We said, okay, if it's in the PRA, maybe this will be more agreeable to government. Now we are being told no, this is not good enough because gazetting is not good enough.
Well, we have the same concerns around gazetting, that gazetting does not actually give the public the kind of engagement that they deserve, but this is a compromise motion. It's a compromise for what already exists in NWT statutes, and the goal here is to provide something or at the very least, if it is going to be empiric effort, then to send the message very clearly that we need to improve as a government on how we do this. If the federal government can in their wisdom see to include provisions like this in all of their statutes or at least major statutes, then surely a small jurisdiction like ours, that is very closely connected to our residents, can do the same. I do not think this is nearly as open for abuse as the Minister has set out. There are confidentiality protections that apply to lot of those kinds of decision-making.
If we were able to work together and that was the concern -- that is the first time I have heard a concern around land withdrawals -- that could have been brought to committee. We could have worked collaboratively to address it and to build this requirement more holistically to prevent that conflict from happening, but again we are just told no, and now we are back here again, where we are putting a motion forward with half of the information, a motion that already exists in another statute, and being told it cannot be done. So my challenge to this Minister, the Minister who is also the Minister responsible for Public Engagement and Transparency is: find a better way that is palatable to the GNWT machinery and to this House. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. I will allow the mover of the motion to close debate. Mr. O'Reilly.
Yes, thanks, Mr. Chair. I detect a certain amount of frustration here. This is not as if committee has not tried to work with Ministers, with Cabinet, to get to some sort of understanding of how regulations are going to be made in the future, given that, most of these bills, all of the details are off into the future. So, as my colleague said, we tried to adopt language from the MVRMA requiring consultation. We even tried to add permissive language to allow the Minister to enter into agreements with Indigenous governments moving forward on how to co-draft regulation or engage Indigenous governments on regulations. That approach was rejected. I agree. Gazettes are for nerds, maybe, but, if you do not like the way the Gazette is done, change it. Make it something that is user friendly. What is the system to ensure that our Cabinet is going to work with our residents moving forward on the development of these regulations? There is no process. This government does not even have a process to develop regulations and allow for public input. It's all done on a case-by-case basis.
The way to a certain place is also paved by good intentions. I hear the Minister's intention. He cannot bind the next Minister or the next Cabinet in how this is going to be done moving forward, but, without any requirements, any provisions, in the bill, this may not even happen. So here we are again, and I have a funny feeling this is going to come back to the House again because Cabinet has failed to provide an opportunity, a way, for the public to comment on regulations moving forward. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you.
