Agreed.
Clause 6, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Clause 7, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Clause 8, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Clause 9, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Bill 11, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles Act, does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. The bill as a whole does not -- sorry, the bill as a whole, does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Does committee agree that Bill 11, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles Act -- I want to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was remiss in my earlier statements. I wanted to point out something that committee had engaged the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and that wasn't put on the record here. He had provided some excellent and thoughtful advice to committee and, of course, we shared that with the department, and the department received it in the manner it was delivered which was collaborative in order to find better ways to follow through, and hence, some of the amendments were driven by that conversation and collaboration. So, you know, often I do jest about us not working together. This certainly definitely was an excellent example of working together, including accessing the great advice provided by our Information and Privacy Commissioner, and to that I wish to thank him for his advice and acknowledge the department was able to help us, and we sailed through with those suggestions and amendments. And, hence, we have what we have here today. So I just thought we're going so fast and it was missed, Mr. Fox needs the credit due as our Information and Privacy Commissioner for the work he does, and sometimes that work is quiet and doesn't get acknowledged. Today is not going to be one of the cases. We are going to put on the record we appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. Does the committee agree that Bill 11, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles Act, is now ready for third reading? Committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Does the committee agree that this concludes our consideration of Bill 11, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles Act? Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, Minister. Thank you to the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the chamber. Thank you.
Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 275-20(1), Main Estimates 2025-2026. We will now consider the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs. Does the Minister of the Executive and Indigenous Affairs wish to bring witnesses into the House?
Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber. Would the Minister please introduce his witnesses.
Thank you. To my right, we have Tram Do, the director of corporate services. And to my left, John MacDonald, secretary to Cabinet and deputy minister of the department of EIA. Thank you.
Thank you. Committee has agreed to forego general comments. Does the committee agree to proceed to the detail contained in the tabled document? Committee, agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we will defer the departmental summary and review the estimates by activity summary beginning with Cabinet support starting at page 123 with information items on page 125. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I assume this is probably the best place to be asking questions about the business plan. I just note that there's some business plan update and wanted to ask the department for -- ask the department some questions about that's.
The first one is on the negotiation mandate updates being done by 2025-2026. I've kind of -- I've said to the Minister a few times, you know, this seems like a bit of an underwhelming goal and, you know, I know there's a lot of pressure from everybody who talks about settling the land claims, getting them done, why can't we get them done quicker.
So the first question on this is, you know, why couldn't these negotiation mandate updates simply be done in a few months? Is it that it's really much more complex than it sounds? And secondly, Mr. Chair, what progress have we made thus far on the updates to these mandates? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So one of the issues is that I want to have a chance to actually meet with the Indigenous governments, talk about negotiations, learn from them what their issues and concerns are, familiarize myself with our mandates and our positions on the concerns from Indigenous governments or our positions on their positions. And, you know, we've been through a full year now. We've had a number of those meetings. And we are actively working on looking at ways to adjust our mandates, if necessary, to ensure that we can make some progress. And so I'm confident that in the first half of this year, we're going to see some significant movement on those mandates. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, understanding that negotiations are confidential and the Minister probably won't be able to share too much detail, I mean, if there's anything the department can share with Members or even share publicly about progress that's being made, I would certainly appreciate hearing it; I think a lot of people would. I know this is a high priority item for me and other Members. Yeah, if the Minister wants to elaborate a bit, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. So we have a number of different tables. I mean, I don't know if the Member wants me to get into each one and talk about where things are at but there's been progress on, you know, moving towards AIPs, moving towards finalized agreements. We do send -- and just so the public is aware, we do send the Members quarterly updates that really detail where things are at with those tables, and I'm happy to provide some in-camera briefings as well if committee would wish on these. But, you know, here at the table, it's really hard to sort of in broad terms talk about where we are with all of our tables. So I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Fair enough, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. And, yeah, I certainly personally appreciate the offer of a briefing on this and actually think it would be a good idea. It's been -- I don't know if we've had a briefing on the specific subject at AOC, but it's something I'd definitely be open for. So let's perhaps have the AOC chair chat with the Minister about doing that. I'll leave that as my questions for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This place is as good as any to find out, I guess maybe first, what are we officially calling -- in the most responsible sense I'm asking this question, what are we officially calling our super deputy minister, principal secretary -- I'm not even sure what we call them -- that has been migrated half-time to Ottawa? So let's start with the actual title name. I'm curious. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. As shared with Members and reported widely in the press, the title is senior envoy to the Government of Canada. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.
So will this senior envoy be still the current or future principal secretary as well? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
The position of principal secretary is currently vacant, and as we move forward with this new arrangement, we will see how things go and what the future holds. I can't say one way or another what the future of the principal secretary position is. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'm curious on how many senior management assistants or deputy assistants of some sort that the Premier's offered to the cabal of staff that support the network of the executive he's added since he's become Premier. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Could the Minister clarify that again; I couldn't quite understand the question. Thanks.
I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.
