Kevin O'Reilly

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. This is one of the hills I guess I wanted to die on in this Assembly. Maybe it seems like I'm trying to die on every single administrative trivia. That's not the case, but this is one that Members on this side of the House have continually raised, is the need for better public engagement and communications from our Cabinet colleagues. And I think this is really extended to the issue of regulations in particular.

In this Assembly, we did amend and I did get concurrence from the Minister. The Child Daycare Act was amended to require the Minister in that case to provide...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister. Of course, I still haven't heard him say the word "crisis" or "emergency" in relation to climate change. But the Auditor General raised the failure of two previous GNWT strategies to reach their greenhouse gas reduction targets, and the current one would also fail without the closure of the Diavik mine. Can the Minister tell us whether GNWT will actually embrace net zero as a target and when we might expect to reach that? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, thanks for that, Madam Chair. I appreciate the comments that folks have brought forward. But I think one of the reasons I'm bringing this forward is because the department doesn't appear to have done any public engagement with NWTAC because they asked the committee to do this. So it's one of the reasons why I'm here, is trying to ensure that zoning bylaws are properly recognized and incorporated into forest management decisions. So I think some of that work can and should have been done before we got here.

This is not about having to review every single bylaw that a community government...

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So through the work of the committee, with the departmental staff and the technical working group, we did make some progress on the issue of what information should be made public because the bill was totally silent on this which was, really, I guess kind of surprising given that this issue was raised in the last Assembly with regard to Bill 44. It was also raised during the public engagement by the department earlier in this year. It was raised in written submissions to the committee as well. So we did make some progress. What we have here is a relatively short list...

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...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change who seems to be the lead on the climate emergency. I asked this question in the last sitting about whether our government considers climate change a crisis or an emergency. The answer was, from the infrastructure Minister was, quote, We could be dismissed or polarized by individuals who are holding very different views, end of quote. That's why we don't do it.

So following the horrendous fires this summer, can the Minister now tell us whether this government considers climate change an emergency...

Madam Chair, I move that subclause 48(2.1) of Bill 74 be amended

(a) in paragraph (a), by striking out "in respect of the" and substituting "in respect of an"; and.

(b) in paragraph (b), by striking out "that is applicable in respect of the" and substituting "or zoning bylaw that is applicable in respect of an".

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, one of the concerns that we had raised to us in a written submission was how the Act would apply to, say, titled property and say areas where people have surface leases for various purposes. This legislation would seem to enable the department to issue forest licenses and permits on what might be privately owned or area owned lands or areas where the surface rights have been leased out. Is that the case? And if not yeah, I'll start with that. Thanks, Madam Chair.

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.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So this is a 2.1 here is a new part of the bill that was added as a result of the collaborative review we undertook. And I think one of the issues that we found and this was raised in the last version of the bill in the last Assembly. It was raised again during the public engagement on this bill. I said this in the House at second reading. You know, what is the relationship of forest management as established under this bill, what's the relationship with land use planning?

We have forest ecosystem management plans. We have monitoring and research that's being...