Kevin O'Reilly

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Like my colleague, who serves as chair of the committee, we did talk about this and I'm not sure I can share my colleague's characterization of committee reports. Committee reports are from a committee. They're not from one or two Members. And believe me, I've seen the how hard the clerks work to make sure that there is consensus from committee, and if needs a majority vote, it gets a vote. Reports are not from one or two Members; they are from a committee. And that's the way it needs to be interpreted in this House so I don't feel very good about my colleague's...

Mr. Speaker, I have some further questions I'd like to pursue with the Minister of Environment and Climate Change on this arsenic remediation guideline matter. It's not clear whether this new work went through any kind of an internal or external review or was discussed with interested comanagement bodies, such as the land and water boards or even the Giant Mine Oversight Board. So can the Minister tell us who was consulted during the development of these new arsenic remediation guidelines, and can he summarize what happened or make a commitment to make that information public? Mahsi, Mr...

Yeah, thanks. Well, I'm not going to try to answer my colleague's question directly. But I guess the expectation coming into an Assembly is that Regular Members, Members who are not on the Cabinet side, would sit on two committees. This wasn't a requirement. And then this Assembly, that didn't happen, which increased the workload for the remaining Members. So this is, I think, in response to just try to lay not just lay out that as an expectation in the future. This is more of a requirement, dare we say, that if you're going to get elected here, you serve as a Regular Member, you're...

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, we have you know, the Intergovernmental Council's in place now for a number of years; it's actually established through legislation. The Council of Leaders is in place, and that was through a series of discussions and negotiations led by the Premier, and I compliment her for that. Regular Members have actually been able to send observers to those meetings. I personally attended Intergovernmental Council meetings. They've actually asked me to say things once or twice. I actually give my colleagues in the standing committee written reports from my meetings. I share agendas...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Sometimes neighbours want to know what's happening next door, and this doesn't provide any mechanism for that to happen. But the site closure section of this document is particularly troubling. It would enable GNWT to accept contaminated sites where there could be residual environmental liabilities without any financial security and could allow GNWT to accept sites requiring perpetual care at taxpayers' expense. So can the Minister explain why this guideline would allow GNWT to accept financial liabilities and perpetual care...

Thanks, Madam Chair. So okay, I got an explanation as to why the Minister and Cabinet believe that this shouldn't apply to GNWT. Why does it apply, then, to municipal governments? Thank you.

Yeah, okay. Thanks for that. I guess I'll we're going to get to a debate about something a little later here, but.

So I just want to turn to the there's a process convention on communications between Cabinet Ministers, standing committees, and Regular Members, and section 3 is consultations with standing committees. I'm just going to paraphrase something in here.

You know, from time to time Cabinet may wish to see considered input from a standing committee on a proposed government initiative plan, activity, or discussion paper. In these instances, Cabinet may provide a committee with...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. It might be helpful to actually amend the document to cite the Environmental Protection Act. But I also wonder whether this guideline will apply to privatelyowned lands or a contaminated site might be located even if the contamination has not escaped the site. So can the Minister tell us whether this guideline will apply to privatelyowned lands and how? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Well, my apologies to the Minister. My recollection was that that was said during the clausebyclause review and if my recollection is wrong, I sincerely apologize. But I guess I'd like to know, first off, just confirm with the Minister, will this bill apply to GNWT? Will it apply to Indigenous governments? Will it apply to municipal governments? What's the application of this bill. Thanks, Madam Chair.

I don't want the clock to be run out. I want to know how specifically the open government policy was used in drafting this bill. I don't want to hear about the roles of Cabinet. I don't want to hear about roles of Regular MLAs. I want to know how the open government policy was implemented in the drafting of this bill. Thank you, Madam Chair.