Mr. Speaker, that is very kind of you. Perhaps the devolved powers of Scotland got passions inflamed at the other end of the House.
Clearly, it is a difficult process, as I was suggesting earlier. How do we walk down that path? In Scotland's case, there were two parties involved. There was the Westminster Parliament and what became the Scottish Parliament after the powers were devolved. There were only two entities involved, because it was an act of union between Scotland and England when the two Parliaments came together. There was a historical context, and devolution after the fact could rely on the historical context. Nonetheless, it did not make it simple to devolve.
On the other hand, with the NWT, there is no precedent in a sense that there was a parliament historically that went away and now wants to come back. The powers have been granted because it is a territory without the same powers the provinces have. Some of us would argue that this oversight has been there for far too long and needs to be addressed. It is being addressed with this particular piece of legislation.
Inside of the territory, a number of nations are signatories to treaties with the crown. The government, through the Governor General, being the agent of the crown, has an obligation to speak to them.
Some would ask how much consultation is enough consultation. I would think one needs to work at it to a point where the parties come to an agreement. One cannot just impose if there was a previous agreement about how to do these things, especially when it comes to the use of water and land.
I was in the municipal world as an elected official at one point. When upper-tier municipalities in Ontario would try to tell lower-tier municipalities how to use water and where to take it from or where they should put it, the lower tier's ability to decide and make decisions about development would be negated. That is usually what a fight would be over. Lower-tier municipalities would say that they wanted the right to decide where development would be, and the only way they could do that would be if the upper-tier municipalities would give them the right to make decisions about water usage and where to put it.
I used that analogy because that is what is happening here. If we take the right away from the regional boards and give it to one board, we ostensibly give, in the eye of the regional boards, an upper-tier board the right to decide what development will look like, especially when it comes to land use, resources, and water. They will see that as something that is being taken away from them and not necessarily as something being given to them as a benefit. That seems to be part of the issue here in the sense of what we do or do not do.
If we are going to devolve, there are aspects that are highly appropriate. The territorial government in the Northwest Territories is saying that it is happy devolving certain powers, and it wants to head along that path. We should respect that, and we do respect it on this side. I believe that the government, to be fair, has also respected devolving powers to the territory. The government should take credit for that, and I am sure it will.
The hiccup on this side is the other issues related to the regional boards. I would ask the government to consider that. I am not suggesting that the government is saying that it is doing it “just because”. I do not think that is the rationale. I think it believes that this is better.
The difficult part is that there are many signatories to the treaties and the agreements.They do not believe that they should give it up at this moment in time.
We would suggest that the government split it. I recognize that the government does not always like to do that. It likes to bundle some things together. It tries to speed things along, and we see it all the time. It tries to speed things along and get things out of the way.
I must admit that the Conservatives did not have time allocation on the bill, and we are grateful that they did not do that.