Thank you, Madam Chair. To the clause as amended, I move that Bill 65 be amended by deleting clause 3.1 and substituting the following:
3.1.(1) In this section, "land, resources and selfgovernment agreement" means
(a) any of the following agreements:
(i) the Gwich'in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement entered into between Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada and the Gwich'in, as represented by the Gwich'in Tribal Council, on April 22, 1992, as amended,
(ii) the Inuvialuit Final Agreement entered into between the Inuvialuit of the Inuvialuit settlement region and the Government of Canada on June 5, 1984, as amended,
(iii) the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement entered into between Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada and the Dene of Colville Lake, Deline, Fort Good Hope and Fort Norman and the Metis of Fort Good Hope, Fort Norman and Norman Wells, as represented by the Sahtu Tribal Council, on September 6, 1993, as amended,
(iv) the Land Claims and SelfGovernment Agreement among the Tlicho and the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada, signed on August 25, 2003, as amended,
(v) the Deline Final SelfGovernment Agreement among the Deline First Nation Band and the Deline Land Corporation, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada dated February 18, 2015, as amended;
(b) any legally binding agreement intended to be a treaty under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, concluded between an Indigenous Government or Organization, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada; or
(c) any prescribed legally binding agreement.
(2) This act is to be interpreted. In a manner consistent with the recognition and affirmation of existing Aboriginal and treaty rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
(3) An action or thing authorized by this act must be carried out in accordance with any applicable land, resources and selfgovernment agreement.
(4) If there is a conflict or an inconsistency between a provision of this act or the regulations and a provision of a land, resources and selfgovernment agreement or legislation approving, giving effect to and declaring valid a land, resources and selfgovernment agreement, the provision of the land, resources and selfgovernment agreement or legislation prevails to the extent of the conflict or inconsistency.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I just want to understand. I believe this language comes from is repeated in at least a couple of other pieces of GNWT legislation. And can I ask the law clerk to confirm that for me, please.
Can you repeat your question, sorry.
Yeah, okay. Well, let me just try it, yeah. I understand that this language comes from other laws of the Northwest Territories passed by the Assembly. So I just want to find a way to confirm that, and which pieces of legislation it comes from.
Thanks, Madam Chair. If I understand the question correctly, it is does this clause appear in other pieces of legislation. The answer is yes, to my knowledge, at least two other pieces of legislation. They're substantially similar clauses. And those would be the Forest Act, Bill 74, not an act yet. And the Protected Areas Act as well. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks. That sound pretty good to me. I would prefer having a little bit more meat on this nonderogation clause, so to speak, that makes sure that, you know, we support the land resources and selfgovernment agreements that have already been negotiated, and there's the ability to add more. So I think this is good language. And it's a little more specific than just section 35 rights. It brings it down to our situation in the Northwest Territories, so. But it includes those so, yeah, I agree with this. I support it. We've done it before, and I think we should do it again. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Members, there was just an error in the date of the motion that was on the print, but it's not the date that's in the legislation that we currently have. It's just our document that we're reading from. So I'm going to have to get MLA Cleveland to reread that section (4) of the Tlicho agreement section. So if we can go have you correct that, just to make a note to correct that, and we can if Members are okay, we can agree to go back to debate. Okay. MLA Cleveland.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank you to my colleague for pointing that out to me. So just for the record, (iv) should read: the Land Claims and SelfGovernment Agreement among the Tlicho and the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada, signed on August 25, 2003, as amended.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I'm not actually sure that this is in other acts, that it does anything to list the specific land claims. You know, the original motion says section 35 of the Constitution Act and existing Aboriginal treaty rights, which then is meant to include of them. But we've done this before. And then we've kind of been having this debates in every single piece of legislation since this wording was introduced. And I would encourage the government I guess we don't have any time but to just put this in the Interpretation Act and then it applies everywhere, and we can call it a day. But here we are. We'll have the debate again about whether the specific matters when we have the general. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Cabinet won't be supporting this. As one of the Members pointed out, there is a specific information in here and there's also very broad and general information in the subclauses I guess subclause (4). What we want this piece of legislation to be is something that people can look at and understand what lien legislation in the territories is, and what this would require people to do is go and now read agreements and before they do work for Indigenous government to determine whether there's any inconsistencies. They might just say, why bother. So I'm not quite clear what, you know, parts of this motion mean. It would take some analysis. And I don't really see any analysis here on what exactly this would do. We know some people might say well, it doesn't do anything. Other people might say well, we'll let the courts decide and we could wind up in the courts. So if there's legislation or if there's, you know, clauses that have ambiguous and unclear and aren't necessary, then I don't think they need to be in legislation. So I will not be and I'll say as well that this might appear in the Forest Act and the Protected Areas Act. Those Acts are not the business or sorry, the Builders' Lien Act. They're very different. They have very different purposes. When it comes to drafting a piece of legislation every word matters, and legislation isn't necessarily a copy and paste kind of thing. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. I will return to the mover of the motion for any closing comments on the motion. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I believe that being this specific is important. I believe that not only when we're talking about land and resources but when we're talking about land and resources in conjunction with doing business as well that we need to be able to reference land settlement agreements and that they matter in both. So I think that this is an important distinction. And I guess people will vote how they want to vote. So thank you.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is defeated.
Defeated
Clause 3.1, does committee agree?
Agreed.
Clauses 4 through 10, does committee agree?
Agreed.
Clauses 11 through 19, does committee agree?
Agreed.
Clause 20. Member for Kam Lake.
