Kevin O'Reilly

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Great, so the Minister can do this as well. Can I just get an explanation from the department of what the purpose of subclause (13) in this section is? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any other stakeholders communicated with? Northwest Territories Association of Communities, NGOs, some of the parties that did make representations to the standing committee? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, the clock is ticking. Can the Minister clearly outline what the scope and substance of the fiscal regime is that his department seems to have already started? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This section of the bill is all about this idea of restricted areas. This gives Indigenous governments the ability to request temporary restrictions on areas of up to one year, that can be extended to two years, for a number of purposes including areas that might have unique, archaeological, cultural, ecological, geological, or historical significance. Of course, they have to cover the minimum area, and the area can be no larger than something that might be prescribed by regulations.

This would add in to those reasons why an Indigenous government may want to seek protection...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Were there any discussions that the department had with community governments or NWTAC about how to avoid land use conflicts from happening in the future such as providing notice to community governments of claims staking within their boundary? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comments from the witness. If that is what the intention is, we should have included it in the bill itself. I would urge whoever takes up the torch after us to give this bill a very thorough going through to make sure that it does incorporate principles around polluter pays because I do not think it does, and we are going to get to some other matters in the bill itself where I think we have opportunities to address that. Those are all the comments I have for now on the purpose section. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do support this bill because it does three things. It provides that pension credits can only be claimed in the Northwest Territories by Northwest Territories residents. It also allows a pension and dividend credits to be claimed by NWT residents with business income earned outside of the Northwest Territories. So I support it because it will help accomplish those things, and I think those have a clear public purpose. The other thing that it does provide is a mechanism for a cost-of-living offset benefit related to something that shall not be named, so I do support this. I...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I also referenced the Cabinet-approved Department of Lands Establishment Policy that references some of the same sorts of things that you see in the purpose section, so these are the reasons why the Department of Lands was set up, the principle that should guide how they operate. I am just going to read some of these: land management decision making should recognize and respect Aboriginal treaty rights; decisions about public lands should take into consideration ecological, social, cultural, recreational, and economic values; decisions about land and resources should be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it would be fair to say that the way that this bill has been crafted is that the committee, Regular MLAs, are not able to make any changes to it. The only thing that this bill does, and I have said this before, is set out what the carbon tax rates will be. All of the decisions around what the rebates, the grants, how the money is going to get spent, are made at the total and utter discretion of a future Minister of Finance and by Cabinet. What's the point? The bill could not be changed anyways the way that this had been put together. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I don't want to prolong this, but this is the age-old debate of Regular MLAs trying to ensure that there is an opportunity for the public to have some engagement or opportunity to comment on draft regulations in another post-devolution bill moving forward.

We have raised this issue numerous times in the House. Cabinet has not developed any kind of framework or approach for this, and we are trying to respond to what we heard in committee from Indigenous governments, from municipal governments, and NGOs about their interest and willingness to try to work collaboratively with...