Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The intention of this motion, it's my understanding that Indigenous governments, their staff don't need or necessarily want to be engaged or involved in any change that's made to regulations or legislation, but why not sit down and have a discussion, work out when they would like to be engaged and involved around certain subject matters, types of changes that might be made and so on. I think the suggestion is a helpful one to sit down and work this kind of arrangement out so that it's in everybody's best interest. They know how they're going to work together in the future...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to commend our committee for spending some time thinking about this. I wish that we had had the luxury of a little bit more time.

I don't think that we sufficiently appreciate that this is a watershed moment in governance in the Northwest Territories. GNWT actually took over management of land and water resources. As part of that arrangement, there were commitments, maybe even legal requirements, that changes in the way that things are done, in terms of how we relate to land and water, have to be done differently now. There are requirements in place that Indigenous...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the committee for letting me sit in on some of the deliberations they had in Yellowknife around Bill 45, and I want to thank the committee. I think this is a clear example of how consensus government can and should work.

I know that at one point there were actually almost no, or virtually no, written submissions that the committee had received, and I want to recognize the work of my colleague the honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre in seeking out some expert reviews of the bill. She certainly went the extra distance, and that's the kind of job that we...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I did want to take time to respond to a few things that the Minister mentioned in his opening remarks, and then I'd like to ask a couple of lines of questioning, if I can.

I know that we held a lengthy clause-by-clause review the other night. There were a lot of intentions offered by the Minister on some of the language in the bill, but the language itself doesn't really reflect a number of the things that I think the Minister has said, even in his opening remarks here. I'll just pick up on a few of these.

The Minister is right that there was extensive research conducted by...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that paragraph 22(2)(b) of Bill 34 be amended in each of the subparagraphs (i) and (ii) by striking out "or historical" and substituting "historical or municipal." Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Although community governments could obtain the information from the public registry, are there any legal impediments or particular reasons why municipal governments couldn't be given notice of request or record a claim within their boundaries? Are there any legal impediments to that happening? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have yet to hear any good reason why this cannot be included now. The Minister has the authority to develop regulations that define what this notice of intended work is going to look like, and the Minister is required in the act to keep information confidential that could be detrimental to business. I just have heard no good reason why this cannot be put on the public registry. I understand that there may be another Member who would like to speak to it. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

It was 24 that I wanted. Sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It looks like the Minister has the ultimate discretion again. After the clause-by clause review, he said they were going to do some more work on this part of the bill. Can the Minister confirm or tell us who he or his staff consulted with in drafting or bringing forward these motions here tonight to make this change to section 52? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Committee was made aware of how Quebec and Ontario, two major jurisdictions in Canada, carried out major reviews of their mining rights legislation. Ontario, the roll-out of that actually took about a decade to achieve. I know that we did have some discussions with the Minister and his staff around this. This is not going to happen quickly. There's a whole variety of regulations that need to be developed and some very serious policy discussions that need to take place with Indigenous governments, and hopefully the public and the industry.

The intent of this is to try to make...