Bill C-15 (Historical)

Northwest Territories Devolution Act

An Act to replace the Northwest Territories Act to implement certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement and to repeal or make amendments to the Territorial Lands Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act, the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, other Acts and certain orders and regulations

Part 1 enacts the Northwest Territories Act and implements certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement. It also amends and repeals other Acts and certain orders and regulations.
Part 2 amends the Territorial Lands Act to modify the offence and penalty regime and create an administrative monetary penalty scheme. It also adds inspection powers.
Part 3 amends the Northwest Territories Waters Act to make changes to the jurisdiction and structure of the Inuvialuit Water Board, to add a regulation-making authority for cost recovery, to establish time limits with respect to the making of certain decisions, to modify the offence and penalty regime, to create an administrative monetary penalty scheme and to make other changes.
Part 4 amends the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act to consolidate the structure of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board, to establish time limits for environmental assessments and reviews and to expand ministerial policy direction to land use planning boards and the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board. This Part also amends the administration and enforcement provisions of Part 3 of that Act and establishes an administration and enforcement scheme in Part 5 of that Act, including the introduction of enforceable development certificates. Moreover, it adds an administrative monetary penalty scheme to the Act. Lastly, this Part provides for the establishment of regional studies and regulation-making authorities for, among other things, consultation with aboriginal peoples and for cost recovery and incorporates into that Act the water licensing scheme from the Northwest Territories Waters Act as part of the implementation of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I understand, Chair, but I would ask you to keep in mind that just because of the length of time that I have taken—and we all know what's going on and what the dynamics are.... I'm not trying to kid anybody here, but that doesn't deny me, at any time, my rights. Just because the government is tired of hearing about Bill C-15 or about the meeting that happened, in and of itself it should not deny me the right. It's just as if I had just got the floor. There is nothing in the rules that says my rights to speak are less when I'm five hours in than two minutes in. They don't.

I know that you know that, sir, and we'll probably continue to have this little dance all the way along, and that's fine. Somewhere between my doing what I need to do and the government doing what it needs to do, and your trying to be fair-minded, we'll get there, but I am asking for you to, even though it seems like a long time—it has been a long time—but the length of time, sir, in my view, should not change the perception of you giving that latitude just because personally you've been hearing it over and over or other members have—

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Yes, but the facts on how the Bill C-15 committee went about its job—the benefits from that, the kinds of folks who showed up and why it was beneficial, why they decided to do it in the first place—that is completely germane to why we should be doing it. The simple fact, if Mr. Reid's argument were taken at face value, is all of our arguments would be of four or five words. We have this sentence. That's all you need; that sentence. That's all you need.

I think you understand that the leeway we are asking for is actually completely fair. We need to understand—

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

The member talks about bringing other details relevant to Bill C-15. I'll just point out that only one detail relative to Bill C-15 is actually relevant to this committee and that is the fact that the committee studying Bill C-15 travelled to different cities. Everything else about it actually is irrelevant and ought to be viewed as inadmissible in this committee because it is not on question of travel of this committee, which was the motion in debate.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I accept that there are limits to that, but I do have the right to bring in other details about Bill C-15 and not have it shut down because they don't want to hear any more about Bill C-15, and the fact that I say the letter and the two numbers, C-15, does not mean that I am making repetitive arguments. It means that I am referring to subject matter.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I agree, Chair, however, I would assume that doesn't extend to the point that every time I say the words “Bill C-15” I'm out of order because it's already been mentioned. I accept that—

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Several minutes have gone by and the member has spoken at considerable length about how—essentially an editorial—he feels that debate has been hastened along too much, which isn't really a new introduction of facts. Now he's about to return to Bill C-15, which is also not new. Could you encourage him to stick to actual new information as a way of being respectful of both the rules of the committee and also of the sensibilities of the rest of us who are actually hoping to have a substantive debate?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

So they spent the whole day talking about Bill C-15 in Yellowknife, which is exactly the kind of thing I'm asking in my motion. Yes, I feel the noose tightening and I hope people are watching and understanding the kind of abuse—my word—of the majority that we're seeing. It's on the big stuff and it's on the small stuff, up to and including they've now got a play in motion to end my speaking. My job is to continue to push this as far as I can.

I would just point out to you, Chair, that there is a fine line between what someone else considers to be going on and on versus someone else's ability to make a point that they think is important. I appreciate that—

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Chair, I have a point of order.

My understanding of the rules is that a member is required to be both relevant and also to be actually making new points, as opposed to restating the same point over and over again. It seems to me when it comes to Bill C-15, a bill that has now been discussed through several different meetings over a period of a number of hours, the same point is being made, the point being that there is a precedent for a committee to travel out of Ottawa on a bill. This is not an unprecedented point. I accept that is a point that is germane to the argument, but it's one point and it's not many points. It's certainly not sufficient material to be repeated over and over again and still be in order. I suggest to you, Mr. Chair, that this means in effect that when a member returns to the subject he is effectively out of order and ought to be superseded so that we can move on with actual debate on actual points.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It is by comparison, though, Chair. It is about the comparison because my motion is to have us do what Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development did with their bill. I'm not reaching back to 1891, not even to the 1900s. I'm talking about just a couple months ago, so the relevancy is that my motion calls for witnesses and I believe that the witnesses are germane to the bill at hand, just as the witnesses were on Bill C-15. That's why I'm making sure that we understand this point and I'm trying to make it as clearly as I can.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Actually, I got to Yellowknife when I was at Queen's Park, before I came here. It's a very beautiful city and it would be a great place for this committee to go because we now know that if my motion was adopted, this could be one of the places we go to. I want the members of the government to know that it looks like a pretty secure place. I know they were very frightened of going out on the road and having Canadians say impolite things on their placards outside of a meeting. And remember, this is the government that considered the input of Canadians to be a gong show and a circus. I just wanted to mention this, specifically. That's why C-15 provides a great opportunity for me to show direct comparisons between what my motion is requesting this committee do, and exactly what another committee did in the same situation not more than two months ago.

I'm talking about the witnesses. Who did they have, relative to C-15, so that we can be sure the people I've listed in my motion are important and relative to our bill, C-23, in the same way these witnesses were? Right off the bat, as much as it makes no sense for us to be dealing with this without the input of the Chief Electoral Officer, the very first person that the committee.... By the way, the proper name, Chair, is the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, and I apologize to that committee for not having it at the tip of my fingers.

The first witness for the government was the Hon. Bob McLeod, who is the premier of the Northwest Territories. He brought legal counsel, James Fulford, and Shaleen Woodward was the assistant deputy minister. There were representatives there: the Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew, former member, chairperson; Frank Andrew, the grand chief; and Daryn Leas was there as his legal counsel. You can see the kinds of people they invited, Chair, are directly related to Bill C-15, and that's why my motion—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I was mentioning the importance of witnesses in my motion as it relates to the bill in front of us, and comparing it to the witnesses to C-15, and to give an example of a relevancy that they saw for these witnesses to come, vis-à-vis Bill C-15.

Now, remember, this is in Yellowknife.

Have you been to Yellowknife, Chair?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Now my colleague has come back to one of the examples—we mentioned two examples in the past, C-15 and C-10—that, I think, is the most important feature of our argument, in terms of the history of this place, that committees in fact do go on tour sometimes for bills. What I'm wondering is—this is a point of order—assuming my colleague is going to be speaking for a while, whether or not there's any provision in the rules, or just common practice, for a request from the committee for any quick research from the Library on whether there have been other bills that have gone on tour, to help inform our debate, and whether there's any precedent for doing that in the middle of discussion.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's hard to come up with new material. However, I have some. I know you were worried for a moment, but through the chair, I want you to know that I have ample material that's clearly within the lines. But as an insurance policy, anything more I can use to fill the time that I have in front of me, obviously, I would do that.

But your point's well taken, and the point of order was in order. I accept your comments, Chair, and I will obviously continue to respect them. So I'll try to keep it tighter, sir.

In doing that, I am talking about Bill C-15, which I didn't talk about much before, other than to make some reference to it. Now I'm talking about it specifically, because I believe the details of what happened on Bill C-15 bear direct relationship to the motion that I have in front of us, and that is: should the committee travel to other places outside Ottawa to hear Canadians on the bill in front of us?

That, sir, is exactly the same question that was in front of the.... I'm trying to find the committee that sponsored that. It was the Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs...probably the same committee. Anyway, the committee was faced with the same thing that we are faced with. They could have made the same decision. They could have said that no, they don't normally do that, so why would they. I wasn't there, but I can only presume, based on what happened, that there was a common-sense discussion about “Gee, it concerns the Northwest Territories. Do you think we maybe should drop by and see if anybody there has something to say about an act that's only about them?”

It's the same thing with this bill. It's about the election laws, and those election laws apply exactly the same to the richest Canadian as they do to the poorest Canadian. Those rights apply to the most important Canadians as they do to every other Canadian, because we're talking about our vote, and the procedures of whether or not our vote matters.

And as we see in Ukraine, when they fight for democracy, built into that word for them is the right to vote and the right to a—wait for it—fair election process. That's why countries like Canada spend tens of thousands of dollars to send MPs, in certain cases, to other countries to be election observers. We spend tens of thousands of dollars. And fellow Canadian citizens, through CANADEM, they coordinate citizens going. Remember, the Government of Canada leased an entire plane because there were over 500 Canadians—MPs and citizens—who went to Ukraine in 2004 during the orange revolution to monitor the election to ensure that the process was fair and transparent.

Yet we live with the hypocrisy of this government saying how great democracy is everywhere else and how hard they're willing to fight for it everywhere else. They're willing to spend bags of taxpayers' money to fight for it everywhere else and make all kinds of speeches about it, even create a whole ministry of democratic reform. But when the crunch comes, they don't really believe in democracy. No, they really don't.

They accept that they have to live by certain rules, and when that becomes a problem, what do they do? They change the rules. They believe in the rule of law, as long as it's their law. It's easy to follow the rule of law when it's your law. My motion is an attempt to make sure that it's not just the government's law, that we give Canadians themselves—whose election this belongs to—a say in this.

We actually saw, Chair, the intent of my motion played out less than two months ago in Yellowknife. My motion speaks to the kinds of witnesses. It's not limited.

It's not an exhaustive list, but it gives an example of the kinds of people we'd like to be hearing from. The motion, I think, contains examples of some of those witnesses who are very appropriate to the bill before us, just like, Chair, they did with C-15. My motion says these are some of the witnesses we should bring in—on C-15, they had witnesses.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I consider that everything said is moving us forward, but I also accept that not everyone would see it that way, and that's fine.

I don't know exactly where I left off. I'm not sure that it matters all that much that I have clear, succinct continuity, given the context of making the remarks. However, I know that, at some point prior to our suspending to go up and vote in the House on a motion, I was talking about Bill C-15.

There are a number of reasons why I've raised Bill C-15 in the context of my motion and why, Chair, I believe that talking about Bill C-15 is germane to my motion. That is because, first of all, the government has made arguments that there's something extraordinary about our request, that committees only travel to do studies and, for the most part, don't travel when we're considering actual pieces of legislation. For the most part is correct, but it is for the most part, not that this is the only way, or it must be this way. That's just the way that the tradition of this place has been.

I suspect, Chair, that the reason for that is the size of the country and having people constantly moving around on every bill would create problems.

Although I have to say, Chair, again in talking about my motion and its relationship to what they did on Bill C-15 up in Yellowknife, that was the opportunity for the government to make its case is clear. They've said that there is no reason for us to go there as another reason. Why would we? Yet Bill C-15 to me is a perfect example of why we would. First of all, it's about the Northwest Territories. So did they stay in Ottawa and talk about it in the safe and secure bubble here under the guise of not travelling, only doing studies, and rarely sending committees? No, they didn't.

I imagine it's because of the backlash they likely would have gotten, especially after we saw how many witnesses they had and how much interest, how much media interest there was. I would imagine those folks would have been pretty upset if they had been told that the only way they could comment on this was to make the trek to Ottawa. Given the fact that devolution of power from Ottawa to the Northwest Territories is what it's about, having them goose-stepped across the country all the way from Yellowknife to come to Ottawa sort of belies the point of what the bill was, which is devolution, less control Ottawa, more control Northwest Territories, and so consistent with that thinking—surprise, surprise—the committee made the decision to go to Yellowknife.

That's why in my motion I'm saying that we should go to various places. I outlined some of the geographical areas. I realize we can't go everywhere. I also acknowledge that we weren't even married to everything that's in our motion when we were offering compromise. We were offering cooperation to try to get us past this process issue and into the substance of the bill. We offered, and that was rejected, so we were left with no choice but to include it in the motion and leave it there. It still stands. If the government says.... It's clear they're not, but I make the statement anyway for the public to hear the truth of what the process is. We are still interested in talking with the government about reaching a number of communities that we would travel to that we can agree on.

Would we get everything we asked for? No. Would the government get what they want, which is only in Ottawa? No. Somewhere in between we'd find a compromise. But that was rejected too.

Every single attempt to plead, to scream, to stamp our feet, to ask nicely, to ask respectfully, everything humanly possible we have done in an attempt to get the government to realize that they may have the legal right to do this but they don't have the moral right. They don't have the moral authority to ram through a Conservative election law that has no input from the opposition and no input from Elections Canada. They don't have that right, that moral right. They saw that—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Abrogation. Thank you. I appreciate the help.

I imagine that would leave you feeling pretty angry with the world and your government and your justice system.

Given that my motion, Chair, speaks to travel, I thought what I might do is enlighten the committee on exactly how my motion can work, give an example of why it's relevant, and why it's not in any way out of order or to be considered anything other than a legitimate means of looking at this bill.

The government introduced Bill C-15. I'm raising this, Chair, because I am showing that my motion is reasonable, and I am showing that within this year, in the last couple of months, this Parliament has already approved exactly what I'm asking for in my motion. The relevancy is clear.

There is government bill C-15, An Act to replace the Northwest Territories Act to implement certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement and to repeal or make amendments to the Territorial Lands Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act, the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, other Acts and certain orders and regulations. The short title of that bill is the Northwest Territories Devolution Act.

On December 3, 2013, the Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs introduced Bill C-15, An Act to replace the Northwest Territories Act to implement certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement and to repeal or make amendments to the Territorial Lands Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act, the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, other Acts and certain orders and regulations in the House of Commons, and it was given first reading.

What's interesting is that at various times the government has said about our motion that committees don't travel on bills, that committees travel on studies. For the most part, that is accurate—for the most part. Committees of the House of Commons don't travel as much as I was accustomed to do at Queen's Park, where committees, at least in my day—