Thank you. I move that paragraph 127(z.01.1) of Bill 74 be amended by
(a) striking out ",and" at the end of the English version of subparagraph (i) and substituting a comma;
(b) striking out the semicolon at the end of subparagraph (ii) and substituting ",and"; and
(c) adding the following after subparagraph (ii):
(iii) respecting time periods within which plans must be provided.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, Madam Chair, I mean, I'm opposed to this, and I also just think it's very problematic what the Member's doing here. He keeps finding kind of weird hypothetical situations and saying there's no specific regulation making authority in an act that has one of the largest regulation making authority sections I've ever seen and, as the Member said, he's ever seen. And if this is how we're going to interpret legislation, it's highly problematic because most acts don't say oh, and you can make regulations in relation to this plan for the timelines of it, the ability to amend it, where it's submitted. Sometimes it just says, you know, there's a plan and then there's a general regulation making authority. And to think you have to add every single specific section into an act just leads us down this path where we are here for two and a half hours passing motions that, frankly, no one cares about. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Well, I guess yeah, I think a lot of this can and should have been fixed before the bill got here. This issue was raised to us in the NGO submission. And I guess I take my job seriously. When people bring forward concerns and issues, I think we really, as MLAs, as committees, have a duty to try to find solutions. So the issue was brought forward to us. I'm trying to do my job. And, you know, I regret that we have to spend this amount of time but I still think that this is an important public debate, and that's one of the reasons why I got elected and came here to serve. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, take my job very seriously. You know, I've been I work very, very hard for the constituents of Thebacha. And I also ensure and I'm sure every one of my colleagues do too. We take our jobs very seriously. When you put your name forward on a ballot, you take things seriously. And you do everything in the best interests of your constituents and the people of the Northwest Territories. I do not take things seriously when we have to start putting things in the bill to start telling people how they have to do the operations of a bill, okay. That's a no no. If I start getting involved in all the operations, I mean I'll never be able to get anything done here. I try to be, you know and like I said, I think Rylund said it eloquently. Four years, it took me to say that for him. So I mean, that's a big plus and, you know what, I will not be going into this kind of discussion like this because I think that we have people we have people that work on our behalf, and we expect them to do the best job they possibly can. And I'm sure that's what they're trying to do. And as a Member from Thebacha and an Indigenous person who was in leadership 14 years on that frontline, okay, making these kinds of decisions with IGC I was sitting on the IGC, because this is the part with the with the devolution agreement. You know, it's hard to get things done and when you have something in front of you that has been worked on by that group, I respect that. And I respect everybody who put the time in because I'm sure that they made sure that both sides were protected, including our side which is the government who represents all the people, and also respecting the rights of Indigenous people. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? All those abstaining? The motion is defeated.
Defeated.
Clause 127, does committee agree?
Agreed.
Clause 128? Member for Frame Lake. Sorry, 128.1. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. There's nothing in the bill about any form of public engagement on regulations. So earlier in my remarks, and I think in the committee report as well, at least a couple of the submissions said that the public engagement undertaken by the department was inadequate, that it was delayed, and it was for a very short period of time. And I'm just wondering what the department's learned from the public engagement on the bill and how they intend to apply that in the regulations? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Dr. Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Public engagement took place from November 22nd, 2022 to January of 2023. And the public engagement input was considered by the technical working group. Much of the input that is being discussed here today, it was deemed valuable and to be looked at while regulation development was occurring. So I just want to be clear that we welcome public engagement and much of the public engagement was more geared towards regulations, which makes sense, because it's from people who are actively going to be dealing with some of the things that come from this Act.
I think it's really important to communicate here that the GNWT has a broad policy based approach on determining how and to what degree the public is engaged on regulations. And this approach includes a commitment to conduct public engagement as part of the normal course of their development. Potential exceptions could include emergency orders, minor corrections to existing regulations, names or title changes, and consequential amendments required by changes to other legislation. Even with an exception to public engagement for emergency orders, there could be unacceptable delays from a process to apply the exception. This could occur, for example, if the Minister's role to waive the requirement if it is the Minister's role to waive the requirement for public engagement. The bill delegates the exercise of emergency powers related to wildfires to the forest superintendent and any changes to that, or reassigning that, would cause delays.
Further, adding separate requirements for engagement into individual Acts runs the risk that public engagement requirements will differ for different Acts, fail to evolve with technology, and lead to different approaches and potential confusion across different acts.
The Forest Act cannot come into force without the regulations. The regulations will be developed with the Intergovernmental Council secretariat, and there will be various stages where the public and other stakeholders may provide input. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciate that explanation. But I don't think I heard anything about what lessons were learned as a result of the public engagement on the bill and how those will be applied on the regulations making forward. So would someone like to respond to that, please. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. With your permission, I'll turn to the deputy minister Kelly and then to Mr. Wheler. Thank you.
Thank you. Dr. Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As I previously mentioned, there were a number of things that were learned from the public engagement. It was a very valuable experience. And some of them are the things that are coming up in the discussions today, which the technical working group took very seriously, and has agreed that those things will be coming forward as part of the regulation development process. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Wheler.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. From a technical working group perspective, public engagement is, of course, very important on operations and on matters that are to be considered in the Forest Act regulations. The technical working group understands that GNWT has a broad policy that covers all aspects of government operations across multiple departments in terms of public engagement. And we also understand, and had some discussion, I think with standing committee in the clausebyclause review, about many of the important details that will be dealt with through the regulation making process and the accompanying complementary public engagement that will be needed to deal with those important details during the making of the regulation and, in some cases, and policy. Mahsi.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate those comments. I guess what I was hoping to hear is probably a little bit more in line with what the standing committee report talks about in terms of things like don't wait until the very end before you carry out your public engagement; find ways to share information while you're working through different parts of a bill or issues. I don't think there's anything that would, you know, prevent I hope, ways of sharing more information as the bill's being developed and starting some of the public engagement earlier on it to get input on specific areas or issues moving forward. The committee report also speaks to the need to make sure that departments are resourced for this activity. So I guess I really haven't heard any of that. So I'm not sure what lessons were learned as a result of this bill in terms of public engagement.
In any event, I know that there's a governmentwide policy that this Cabinet put in place, and it's buried in a document if I can find the name of it here. Oh yes, here it is. Cabinet Operational Guidelines, appendix 4.11 of the Executive Council Submissions Handbook. And basically, that policy, if I or guidelines as they're called, basically gives Ministers total discretion as to when and where and how they would engage the public on policy publication and comment periods for regulations. So I'm not sure that that is a great model, quite frankly. And, you know, people have heard me on the floor of the House criticizing this or suggesting improvements already to it. So this is not the time and place to do that, Madam Chair, but I don't think that that works in all circumstances.
So I guess a couple of other features of this bill, and we've talked about this before, this is not a normal bill. This is a bill that is codeveloped with Indigenous governments. And that's a great thing. It's developed pursuant to the Legislative Development Protocol. It's also the first bill through the process convention that we where we agreed to collaboratively review a bill, and not just with Ministers and departments but with Indigenous governments. That's a good thing. I support that. But we also got to learn lessons from this, and I think one of the lessons I learned, and we heard in submissions, was that the public engagement wasn't great and that we need to find ways to improve this. And, you know, the deputy minister even said that we got to make sure that the Minister has the ability to make regulations quickly in the case of an emergency. That's not in the bill. It doesn't even appear in the bill. So in any event, Madam Chair, I do want to move a motion to amend and add a new clause about public engagement on regulations. May I do that?
Yes, thank you. Go ahead, Member for Frame Lake.
