Kevin O'Reilly

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...

Okay, well that's interesting because it's not required in the legislation. But if they want to continue to do that, that's great. Is that what actually happens now; is there an annual report from the forest superintendent? Is it public? Does it contain data on, say, the number of inspections, the number of enforcement actions? Thank you.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I spoke a little earlier about I think the bill. It's good that there's now annual reporting well, there was annual reporting. Now it's a little more detailed. But the missing piece here, I think is an actual deadline by which the annual report would have to be filed. And, you know, I have no doubt that the department and the staff are going to do that, but having a deadline sometimes makes sure it actually gets done. And I've been in this in my eight years, there's been at least a couple of instances where there was a requirement for annual reporting and the annual...

Merci, Madam Chair. Yeah, some of the rationale behind this recommendation, the committee went to a number of communities, including Whati, Enterprise, Fort Simpson, and we constantly heard concerns around the size of firebreaks, whether they were adequate. Also concerns around, you know, the adequacy of their fire prevention suppression capacity within communities. Some people in communities wanted to have, you know, a fire crew based in their community kind of on standby. There was concerns around, I guess, the and I don't know all the details, but I guess the training and certification of...

Thanks. Yeah, that's not what the bill says. But if that's what the department wants to do, I'm okay with that.

What I want to do, Madam Chair, if I can move the motion is to change that so that the department the Minister actually has explicit authority to do that, to set up regulations that deal with changing one of these plans once it's already in place. So with that, Madam Chair, can I move a motion?

Yeah, thanks for that. I guess I want to point out that the wording, you know, about research activities is actually not contained in here. We're going to get to that in a minute with a potential motion. But the other list of items here in 15.1, they're all kind of preceded with this language about it's a summary of. And then it's any activities, any forest ecosystem management plans, any monitoring. So, you know, this word "any" and the kind of activity, that's the way that it's presented in the list here. So I just want that clarified, but or I just think it's important to look at the way...

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. First off, I want to thank the Minister for her kind words about me earlier, but she doesn't get off the hook completely.

You know, I do and will vote in favour of this bill. And I think it's the Minister's kept true to her word. After hearing what happened with the last changes to the carbon tax, the Minister said she was going to come back and try to fix the revenue sharing arrangement with community governments. That's in this bill. She even stretched it to include annual reporting. Thanks to the work of the standing committee, there's now some detail to that...

Sorry, I'm not going to let this one mahsi, Madam la Presidente, I'm sorry, I'm not going to let this go without talking about it.

Just I think it's important to understand the context in which this recommendation was made. This was made before the evacuations took place in, you know, August when we were trying to conclude the review of the bill. But I think it's even more important today.

Now, on Friday, I asked a series of questions of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who wears the same hat as the Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs, about some kind of a...

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Look, I don't want to prolong this. Where is the provision found in the bill for an industrial operator to make changes to a plan once it's approved? Because I think it's going to happen. You know, they're supposed to submit the plans at the beginning of the season. Sometimes people don't if they want to change their activities out there, they may want to move somewhere else or do something differently. Where is that found in the bill if someone wants to make a change to the plan? And how is it going to be reviewed and who gets engaged and so on? Thank you.