Agreed.
Thank you. The bill as a whole, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Does the committee agree that Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act, is now ready for the third reading, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Does the committee agree that this concludes our consideration of Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act; does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, Minister, and thank you to the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the chamber.
Committee, we have agreed to consider Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act. I'll ask the Minister of Justice to introduce the bill.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am here today to present Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act, for consideration by Committee of the Whole.
Family law in Canada is an area of shared responsibility between the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Bill 24 proposes amendments to the Northwest Territories Family Law Act that will bring it in line with changes to the federal Divorce Act that came into force in 2021.
Bill 24 is complementary to Bill 23, An Act to Amend the Children's Law Act, and therefore mirrors the amendments put forward in Bill 23 such as ensuring that the legislative regime for divorcing parents of children subject to federal law is applied also to common-law and other types of family outside of marriage.
Bill 23, like Bill 24, also puts forward provisions with a focus on best interests of the child, parenting responsibilities, duties for all parties to comply with all orders and regulations, alternative dispute resolution, and greater flexibility for the judiciary to create rules of court.
I would also like to thank the standing committee for its study of the bill. I concurred with one motion proposed by standing committee to retain 8(1) of the Act with language modifications to align with new terminology in the Divorce Act. The motion allows the courts to continue to disregard any provision of a domestic contract where it is in best interest of the child to do so.
This concludes my remarks, and I would be pleased to answer any questions that Members may have regarding Bill 24. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. We have agreed to consider Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act. Now I'll ask would the Minister like to bring the witnesses into the chambers.
Thank you. Would the Minister introduce the witnesses? Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right, I have assistant deputy minister, attorney general Brad Patzer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, I will now turn to the deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Social Development, the committee that reviewed the bill, for any opening comments on Bill 24. I'll go to the chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on March 13th, 2025, and it was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Development for review.
On October 20th, 2025, the standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Justice and completed its cause-by-cause review of the bill.
I thank the committee for their efforts in reviewing this legislation. Individual Members may have additional comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member for Mackenzie Delta. I'm going to go to, is there additional Members that want to make opening comments? None?
I'll open the floor to general comments on Bill 24. None?
Is the committee agreed that there are no further general comments? Agreed?
Agreed.
Can we proceed to cause-by-cause review of the bill; does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. There are 28 clauses in the bill. Where possible, I will call clauses in groups of 10. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we will defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses.
Clauses 1 to 10, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Clauses 11 to 20, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Clauses 21 to 28, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. To the bill as a whole, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Does the committee agree that Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act, is now ready for third reading?
Agreed.
Thank you. Does the committee agree that this concludes our consideration of Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Family Law Act, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Thank you, Minister, and thank you to the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the chambers. Thank you.
Committee, we have agreed to consider Bill 27, An Act to Amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act. I'll ask the Minister of Justice to introduce the bill. I'll go to the Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here today to present Bill 27, An Act to Amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act, for consideration by Committee of the Whole.
The Protection Against Family Violence Act provides emergency and long-term protection for victims of family violence. Bill 27 proposes to broaden those who can apply for an order under the Act if they have experience or are in danger of experiencing family violence and in the situations in which someone can apply for an order by recognizing various forms of stalking as constituting family violence.
The bill also proposes to allow that information may be provided to persons applying for a protection order and provides a civil court option for victims of family violence.
The amendments follow a 2022 court decision arising from a review of an emergency protection order as is required under the Act.
This, combined with the findings of an independent report and the practice in some other jurisdictions, prompted the Department of Justice to identify specific areas that could benefit from legislative amendments at this time.
In addition, as is the standard with legislative amendments, Bill 27 makes the language used throughout the Act more gender inclusive.
I would also like to thank standing committee for its study of the bill. I concurred with five motions proposed by standing committee.
The first two motions amended the definition of stalking to require that any form of stalking must occur repeatedly in all cases before it would qualify as stalking.
The next two motions replaced the term dating relationship with intimate personal relationship in section 2(1.1) of the Act and defined that new terminology under section 2(1) further clarifying that both family and intimate personal relationships apply regardless of whether the person have resided together at any time.
The fifth motion updated section 2(5) which allows the RCMP to disclose the identity of a person reasonably believed to be stalking an applicant. To use more consistent language and added 2(6) to clarify the application of the federal Privacy Act applies to the RCMP disclosure under 2(5).
This concludes my remarks and I would be pleased to answer any questions Members may have regarding Bill 27. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Does the Minister like to bring witnesses into the chamber?
Yes, Mr. Chair.
Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber.
Thank you. And the Minister please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Assistant deputy minister, attorney general, Brad Patzer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will now turn to the deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Social Development Committee who reviewed the bill for any opening comments on Bill 27. I'll go to the Member from the Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, Bill 27, An Act to Amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on May 28th, 2025, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Development for review.
On October 20th, 2025, the standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Justice and completed its cause-by-cause review of the bill.
I thank the committee for their efforts in reviewing this legislation. Individual Members may have additional comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will now open the floor to general comments on Bill 27. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I apologize for getting lost in the proceedings earlier.
Just to conclude, I just wanted to highlight Recommendation 7 in that committee has asked the government to initiate a comprehensive review of the entire emergency protection order and protection order system using section 16.1 of the Act, because we certainly heard from people that the effectiveness of EPOs really depends on how the system is functioning in practice. And what we heard is that there are many ways that, in practice, the system is not serving people as well as it could and as well as it needs to. So I'm certainly really hoping that by doing a review of each aspect of the EPO system and looking into beyond just how it's designed but how it's actually working in practice and how it's working in terms of procedures with the -- for example, how soon justices are able to actually review EPOs when they come to them, ways that people can apply for altering the terms of an emergency protection order, things like that I think could make a big difference in terms of how well these are serving people. So I do urge the government, even though it feels like, okay, this part's concluded and the tendency might be to just put this aside and, you know, forget about it for a while. I think to really gain the momentum of the work that's been done here, I would really urge the government to initiate a review and look at further changes to the act that might need to be made that could really be even more effective in serving people. I know that the government will have to take that recommendation away and come back to us, but I just wanted to highlight that in my comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll continue on to general comments. Is there any further general comments? I'm going to go to the Member -- oh, I should know this by now. Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I always say, there's lots of lakes in Yellowknife so it takes a while to get us all figured out.
Mr. Chair, I really just wanted to put my comments on the record and just compliment the committee on an excellent and comprehensive review and really wanted to highlight, again, the recommendations that committee made. They're extensive. There's 15 of them in total, and I think it's important to note that if you take the recommendations in their entirety, and I guess I would direct these comments towards Cabinet. I mean, they're going to be directing their staff and the Minister of Justice to provide a response, but if you look through the recommendations in their entirety, there's a lot in there. There's quite a bit of action that go well beyond simply the amendment of this Act, and so I encourage the Minister in responding to take some time to really think through what a fulsome response to these recommendations would look like. And I think -- I'm not going to repeat it because it's already in the report and it's on the Hansard, in the record, but committee made a point of emphasizing the words of the YWCA-NWT and quoted them at length in their report, and I encourage people to look at that. I encourage the Minister to have a look at it as well. And just to summarize what was said there, effectively, the YWCA was saying updating this Act is not going to end family violence on its own, and I think that's what committee was really looking to get at with the recommendations. And so I want committee to know that I made a point of reading through this. I really appreciate the hard work of committee and the excellent recommendations that they made. And yeah, definitely encourage the Minister to provide a fulsome response to this report, noting that really the amendment of this Act is a step, but it certainly isn't a comprehensive response. So I wanted to get my comments on the record about that. Again, thank the committee for their excellent work and highlight it and ensure that the Minister's aware that those of us who aren't on the committee are watching the government's response to this and want to ensure that it's comprehensive. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there any further general comments on Bill 27? Is the committee agreed that there are no further general comments? Can we proceed to clause-by-clause review of the bill?
Agreed.
Agreed? Thank you. Committee will now defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses.
Clause 1, does the committee agree?
Agreed.
