Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Common law for residential real estate requires that a seller disclose latent or hidden defects that he or she is aware of and that could not be seen in an ordinary inspection. Most real estate purchase contracts obligate sellers to disclose certain information, especially with respect to compliance with municipal regulations and appliances. While generally not legally mandated in Canada, seller property disclosure statements, also called property condition statements or seller property information statements, afford some protection to both buyers and sellers.

My...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t want to steal the Minister’s thunder. As a committee member, I support the objective of minimizing any disruption to the continuity of employment for affected employees to reduce their stress for these individuals during a time of uncertainty in their lives. Nonetheless, there is particular wording that exists in this section, Section 27(3) of the Public Service Act, and it remains an amendment contemplated in this Bill 30. I find this clause very troubling.

The cause of concern is the wording which gives the Minister the authority to appoint the employee without...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have been listening very attentively to the issue regarding this clause. To save time and energy of the House I’d like to move a motion, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I will ask my question again. Is the term “layoff” defined in any of our legislation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did find it odd that we are repealing definitions within the purview of an amendment of an act. It is to my understanding that when we were doing legislative review, legislation in its pure form is supposed to be as prescriptive and definitive as possible to remove ambiguity, ambiguity in definition and ambiguity in law.

Although we heard earlier today that the term is used seldom – I heard only once in some other form of legislation – this would actually prove that even more detrimental that definitions are not removed from legislation. That there’s a clear and definite...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement earlier today, I was hoping the government would be doing more than just taking a look at things. We need to tighten up the belt in this area and we owe it to the public to do so. So, without seeing this mysterious population growth strategy from Cabinet that is trying to encourage more permanent NWT residents, has the government, under MACA’s lead, given any consideration to lowering the risk of buying a home in support of this strategy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the Minister can inform the House, we know very well that other provinces do have measures to protect home buyers, and the voluntary disclosure statements are just one form. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement today, we do have other techniques or tools such as the requirement for realtors to require error and omission.

Can the Minister indicate to the House where are we on maybe providing certain measures to protect the home buyer and seller?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. “Buyer beware” seems to be the prevailing mantra for home buyers in the NWT. I find that disturbing, given that a home is the largest and most important purchase most families will ever make.

There is very little emphasis on protecting NWT home buyers from hidden defects of the property they purchase. As usual, we are behind other jurisdictions on both protective measures and basic public education.

NWT home buyers have little protection beyond the common law and that is minimal at best, because if the law is ignored by the seller, the remedy for the buyer is often more...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that proposed subsection 27(3) in clause 4 of Bill 30 be amended by striking out “to any position in the public service” and substituting “to any vacant position in the public service”. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I believe that’s the justification of the argument today, where we are actually removing the definition even though it’s used in a noun or a verb. We are clearly lessening the legislative process by making more ambiguity in terms of the wholeness of the act, the spirit of the act and the intent of the act. If this is indeed the premise we are about to embark on, I strongly suggest that all departments coming forward to remove definitions is not really what we’re looking for, for great legislation. We’re looking for legislation to have proper definitions so we can understand...