Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I know that it has been a long day, but I need to go on the record for my constituents so that they can see, in the future, what happened here tonight. I supported carbon tax as part of a comprehensive strategy for taking action on climate change. However, I don't support Cabinet's plan.

That plan is made up of three parts: the carbon tax bill that is before us this evening, Bill 42, which imposes, basically, a surcharge, a tax on some fuels. The other two parts of Cabinet's approach on this include the Energy Strategy, and I have spoken at length about the Energy...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I was in the process of trying to get some clarification about why there is no definition of "prospecting" in the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That wasn't my question. Is there anything in law that the Minister can cite that would be used as justification to exclude community governments from being able to request restricted areas? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is about this new provision within the act whereby the Minister is going to require notice of intended work so that there is some understanding of what mining companies get up to when they are out there on the land. I think that this is a good thing, and I am pleased to see that, in the spirit of reconciliation, this notice of intended work is going to be provided to Indigenous governments. I support that. The purpose of this amendment, though, is to include municipal governments in that provision for notice so that we can avoid land use conflicts, but they can...

Merci, monsieur le President. In my statement earlier today I noted that the publicly available end-of-life obligations for Cameron Hills fields seems to be over $12 million. Even if the Minister did not provide that information when I asked back in June, can the Minister tell us who provided that information on the end-of-life obligations for Cameron Hills, as found in the creditor protection proceeding, and how it was calculated? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's great. Is there anything that would prevent the reporting of royalties by each mine? I'm not talking about the calculation of those royalties, but disclosure to the public of an actual figure of the royalties remitted to our government by each mine? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I continue to respectfully disagree. I think that this is going to create confusion that there are two sets of rules that can apply within one zone.

I want to move on, Mr. Chair, to one other issue with regard to zones, and I neglected to raise it earlier. It is what I call the race to the bottom, where we could have Indigenous governments competing with each other to try to attract investment by having lower and lower standards. What is the department going to do to prevent that from happening? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Chair. This is to amend the regulation-making powers of the Minister to basically authorize the Minister to enter into agreements with Indigenous governments on how the regulation-making might be carried out under this bill. This is enabling. This does not require the Minister to enter into such agreements. I think this is a helpful amendment in setting out the ability for the Minister to enter into such agreements.

In fact, we actually heard from the Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated that there were efforts already underway to draft up some sort of memorandum of understanding or some...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. While I appreciate all of that, I just wish it was stated somewhere clearly in the bill.

Mr. Chair, we had this raised with us during the review. Can someone provide a clear definition of what "prospecting" is, and what can happen on a mineral claim, and what kind of prospecting or mineral exploration can happen off a mineral claim? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister explain why that isn't in here? Is there a rationale? Is there some reason why this could not be extended to community governments? Thank you, Mr. Chair.