Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think I have put the Law Clerk on the hot seat long enough. I guess the other circumstance that might be construed as exceptional by some would be if someone had a Criminal Code conviction and was prohibited from running. Assuming all the conditions were still there, if someone had been through a healing process journey and had completed that sort of treatment and so on, would this be another way of defining what an exceptional circumstance could be?

Where I am going with this, Mr. Chair, is I view this as a potentially friendly amendment and worthy of probably some further...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I guess I would like to ask the law clerk, if I may. I know I had some concerns initially about this terminology of exceptional circumstances, but I'm just wondering if we might be able to hear from the law clerk in terms of what this would do in terms of the Charter right. Why don't we start with that? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to move onto the second motion, which is the second recommendation from the Committee.

I move that this Assembly recommend that the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to include a five-year limit on eligibility for candidacy for anyone convicted of an offence of violence or threats of violence under the Criminal Code of Canada and who has not received a pardon or record suspension; and where the offence was committed against a person over whom the accused was determined by the presiding judge to be in a position of trust, authority, or intimacy; and, if...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe this motion in particular will be hopefully non-contentious. We did have brought to the attention of the committee by one of the individuals who made the submission of a situation where, in the past, an individual had been elected, they had not yet been sworn in as an MLA, and there were some actions taken by that individual that were questioned in terms of the conduct. What we found was that the conduct guidelines did not apply to anyone who is a Member-elect until they are actually sworn in. So, the Committee turned its mind to this issue of what happens...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess my first question is: I'd like to know from the Minister or staff what are the subsidy costs for other airports that we operate in the Northwest Territories? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this is the wrong step. It is not inclusive, it is not representative, and not terribly accountable. I raised all of these issues at committee, and do not like the responses I am getting, and for that reason, I will be voting against the bill itself. I had hoped that the Minister would have responded more positively.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I will try to leave some time at the end for the Minister to reply.

I don't want to repeat all of the arguments of my colleague from Kam Lake, but I do have some additional items, as well. I think it's fair to say that this proposal for Bill 7, it was not part of the mandate. This was not an initiative that I knew anything about. It was not part of the mandate, so what was really driving this? I think the motivation was the fiscal reduction targets set by Cabinet to try to get this $4 million contribution from our government off the books, quite frankly. That was the...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to go to the committee terms of reference, which are apparently still secret. Why is there no public representation from a variety of stakeholders for the Economic Advisory Committee? It says that it's -- well, I am not allowed to talk about it, I guess, but it seems to be business leaders. We do not know what kind of business they may be involved with, but why was this not crafted with a view to getting representation from key stakeholders like the travel industry, the travelling public, air carriers, the Northern Air Transportation Association, and so on, the City...

Thanks again to the Minister. That's very helpful to hear that. I appreciate her efforts. Part of the work of Elections NWT is to promote and increase participation in the electoral process including participation of women. How is our government collaborating with Elections NWT or even other organizations to increase the number of women running for elected office?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I guess I'd like to suggest that it's not just air carriers that would be interested in that sort of metric information. It's probably actually the public and air travellers. So are those sorts of things going to be considered? The reason why I ask this is the economic advisory committee is just going to be a bunch of business folks, which is fine, but there is not necessarily any public representation on there. Air carriers may not even be represented. It's just going to be businesspeople. Is there going to be some effort to develop indicators of performance at the airport...