Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Madam la Presidente. I guess I have a number of questions here. The first one is I distinctly remember the Minister at the clausebyclause hearing saying something along the lines of, you know, if I had to start over again I would have done this very differently, and I think we should just go back and I think it should be reported as not ready, basically so. He was encouraging committee to not proceed with the bill. So I'd like to know why we're here tonight. What happened between the Minister saying those words and why are we here? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks for that confirmation. I do want to thank the committee for its work. You know, and there's some good features in here. Don't anybody characterize me as trying to stop or oppose this. The action plan is a good idea.

The idea of doing a review, the shared decisionmaking agreementsinprinciple, all good things, and certainly consistent with the declaration. The issue is none of that was going to be public. Absolutely nothing. No public information about it, no opportunity for public engagement. I just one of the most frustrating things I found, certainly in this Assembly, is I want...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I move that the chair rise and report progress.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I just find it a little bit ironic that standing committee will get notice now of an agreement being negotiated and then there doesn't seem to be any mechanism or way to have any input into that or oversight, dare I say, or ability to comment, ability to work together, other than at the whim of a Minister. And because I don't I'm not sure where we're going with all this stuff. I'm not afraid of it. I agree with it. I support it.

But I think if we're going to do constitutional development, you should come at it with that perspective and that kind of mindset. And in...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And the Minister has confirmed that the only specific role in here is about getting notice about authorization for a Cabinet Minister to go off and negotiate a shared decisionmaking agreement. But, you know, we're supposed to be a consensus government system, and this is not any regular kind of bill. This is a bill to implement Indigenous rights and has the potential to very significantly change the way the Legislative Assembly operates, the way the legislative agenda's formulated, what happens in committees.

And to exclude Regular MLAs from...

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I participated in the review of the bill. And I want to say I support the bill, except for the name change. And the other items in here, though, are good items that are covered here. They are in response to three independent reviews that were done of BDIC. And if I get the dates right, 2013, 2014, 20 I don't know 16 or something, 2018. Anyways, that part of the bill, I don't have any problems with, and I think they're helpful changes that will allow BDIC to do more of what it can and should be doing.

The name change, though, very problematic. And look, I want BDIC...

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Look, I've already said that I agree in principle with this, and I will take issue with the Premier's comments. This is not about me trying to exclude Indigenous governments from getting to shared decisionmaking agreements. This is about trying to find out how Regular MLAs can have a say in agreements before they're finalized. And it's about MLAs doing their job. I'm just not prepared to give Cabinet a bank cheque, I guess. So that's what I think this is about. But in any event, Madam Chair, I do want to move to a motion if I could.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I can't let this one go without raising some concerns and issues that I think are well reflected in the report itself. But I like this idea of a statement of consistency for government bills. I think government has the resources, and they can and should be doing this. The difficulty is that the way the bill was drafted is that requirement for a statement of consistency was also imposed on Private Member's bills without any discussion/consultation with this side of the House. And I'll confirm this when the Minister's up in the witness chair when we get to it but just no...

Yeah, thanks. That sound pretty good to me. I would prefer having a little bit more meat on this nonderogation clause, so to speak, that makes sure that, you know, we support the land resources and selfgovernment agreements that have already been negotiated, and there's the ability to add more. So I think this is good language. And it's a little more specific than just section 35 rights. It brings it down to our situation in the Northwest Territories, so. But it includes those so, yeah, I agree with this. I support it. We've done it before, and I think we should do it again. Thanks, Madam...

Yeah, no, thank you for that. Yeah, I think we're not like a lot of the governments that the Premier described that have party systems. This is supposed to be a consensus government. So the way that the bill has been drafted now and I think this was a helpful addition was that, you know, Regular MLAs will now at least get notice if negotiations a Minister's authorized to begin negotiations on a shared decisionmaking agreement. But the only time there's no requirement there's nothing in the bill about what happens with those agreements other than they're going to get published at the end...