EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
The Act would also provide that if a member became liable by order of the legislature for one of these financial sanctions, the funds could be deducted from the member's pay.
Or the financial sanctions could be recovered in a court of law.
So these are strong additional sanctions.
There is also a provision for the Integrity Commissioner to consider and recommend any other sanction which may be appropriate.
So this allows a great flexibility to examine the nature of the activity that has been found to be in contravention of the act, and to assess the seriousness of that activity, to assess the appropriateness of a remedy without restriction to a hard and fast list.
It would give the Commissioner the flexibility to be creative, if you like, in recommending a sanction and it would give the Legislative Assembly, because the Legislative Assembly makes the ultimate decision, that flexibility in making sure that, if you like, the sanction fits the contravention.
Getting away from the terminology of the penalty fitting the crime.
Because as you have pointed out, as the honourable member has pointed out, there is a whole new spirit in this Act.
The whole spirit of this Act is that an assumption that all Members of this Legislative Assembly regard politics as a noble profession.
That they know the public expects the best of them, the highest standards of them and that they expect the highest standards of themselves.
So while the standards set out in this Act are probably the strictest of any legislation in Canada, or perhaps the world, because as far as I have examined legislation, I believe with the statement or purpose, the statement of principles, the statement of commitment and the accountability that is built into this Act, I think you have the strongest commitment to high principles and high standards of any legislation that I know of.
The purpose of having flexibility in the sanctions is to make sure that the sanctions are refined to acknowledge that there may be a wide range of seriousness of contraventions and I don't think anyone wants a member of this legislature to be sanctioned in any way unfairly. On the other hand you want to have the flexibility to make the sanction fit the contravention and if it is a serious contravention, it might be, as the minister has said, serious enough to warrant that the member's seat be declared vacant.
It might be serious enough that the member be required to pay compensation, either to the government for a loss of the government, or to some member of the public for loss as a result of his or her actions.
There is a flexibility that may allow the legislature to require any financial sanction to be deducted from a pay or to be recovered in court.
Mr. Chairman, I think that we can all agree that this is a very thorough and extensive list of options that are available and I for one feel that having heard the answers that I have heard feel confident and comfortable with this legislation.
One of the other questions that I would like to ask Mr. Chairman, is any legislation or any rules that you have that govern yourself are only as good as the ability that one has that is appointed to be the referee, or in this case the Integrity Commissioner, the power that the Commissioner has to look into and investigate and conduct a review thoroughly and have the ability to access the materials that he or she may need to access in order to come to a proper report and findings in a potential complaint.
I am just wondering Mr. Chairman, if the minister or the Commissioner, could explain a little bit about the powers that the Integrity Commissioner will have and the authority that they will have to be able to conduct these reviews.
Mr. Stanbury: That's me, Mr. Chairman.
That is I, I should say.
I'm satisfied Mr. Chairman, that the commissioner whoever it might be, today or in the future, has all the powers necessary to subpoena either people or documents if necessary in an investigation or review and including if necessary the powers of a commission under the Inquiries Act.
I think the member raises a question which touches on the independence of the commissioner as well and I think it's important to recall that unlike in at least one other jurisdiction which is in the news these days, the commissioner under the Nunavut legislation is an officer of the Legislative Assembly.
Is chosen by the Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Is accountable to the Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Can only be removed by Members of the Legislative Assembly and incidentally in this Act could not be suspended or emasculated in his powers by the Legislative Assembly, if the Legislative Assembly were to lose confidence in its Integrity Commissioner which we all hope that would never happen.
But if that should ever happen the Legislative Assembly as a body, are the only people who could remove the Integrity Commissioner, not the Premier, no one else but the Legislative Assembly.
So, I hope that is reassuring to the honourable member. You have put a lot of trust in your Integrity Commissioner, but the Integrity Commissioner has all the powers and the independence that I think you want an Integrity Commissioner to have so that he or she could carry out the functions that you are giving him or her in this legislation.
I will be saying your name properly from now on.
My question, in the speaking notes on page 8 it states, (interpretation ends) I would like to ask a question, could you explain how the new system will be different from Cabinet Ministers and regular Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Stanbury: Mr. Chairman, I assure you I would have much more difficulty with your name than you would have with mine.
But I'm trying to learn and with your help I will.
I would draw to the honourable member’s attention that there is a, that this Integrity Act is divided to make it a little bit more digestible than the previous law that you've had to contend with, so that there's a clearly delineated group of sections that apply to all Members of the Legislature and followed by a group of sections that apply to ministers alone.
I might just say in passing, you will note that in this statute the Speaker is not treated as a minister but as a regular member, because in most jurisdictions it is recognized that the Speaker does not have the same circumstances applying to his or her activities as a minister.
But the sections that I would refer you to are sections 16 to 20 in the bill in the proposed Integrity Act.
Ministers are not permitted to engage in certain outside activities without either their interests being placed in a blind trust, or receiving the explicit authorization from the Integrity Commissioner for the carrying out of those activities.
Some of those activities are, not engaging in employment or the practice of a profession.
They are expected to be devoting most if not all of their activity to the job of being a minister.
They cannot engage in the management of a business carried on by a corporation.
They cannot carry on business through a partnership or a sole proprietorship or hold an office or a directorship unless holding the office or directorship is one of the minister's duties as a minister or the office or directorship is in a social club, religious organization or political party.
A minister is not permitted to hold or trade in securities or commodities.
But as I mentioned, one of the features of this legislation is flexibility to take into account as far as possible the unique characteristics of our environment and the variety of situations that might arise.
So that for the first time, legislation in Nunavut would provide explicitly for a blind trust which would have to be approved by the Integrity Commissioner, or in the alternative, and I think it might be more commonly used, an explicit application to the Integrity Commissioner for the authority to do a particular thing which otherwise would not be permitted.
That would only be authorized if the Integrity Commissioner were to feel that it would not interfere with the proper performance of a minister's duty.
Everybody looks very nice with their T-shirts.
(interpretation ends) How will the process avoid lengthy and expensive inquiries in this Act.
If I understood the question, how would this legislation more readily avoid the necessity of lengthy, expensive inquiries.
Is that the question.
My question is that it said in the speaking notes that the current system is very lengthy and expensive.
How is it going to be different.
I would like to refer you, I will try to keep this shorter than some of my answers and not refer at length to the report, "For a Culture of Integrity".
But I would like to refer you to the analysis of the existing law which was done by the NWT Review Panel.
They put the emphasis on the desire to have a less expensive and timelier alternative to a full public inquiry.
Unfortunately, without commenting on the procedure in another jurisdiction, I don't think that particular objective was fully achieved in the NWT.
What we have done here, and you can see the rationale in my report, what we have done here as the minister has said, is to provide that the whole process provided for in this statute, is to be carried out by the Integrity Commissioner.
Now, there is no division between the authority of the Integrity Commissioner to advise and to come to recommendations and authority given to an outside arbitrator for instance, who would have to in effect, start over again with an inquiry.
The process here is designed to resolve issues as quickly as possible, restore harmony with the Integrity Commissioner having responsibility for the whole process, from advising members to dealing with giving members written opinions if requested, to responding to requests for review, formerly known as complaints.
Requests for review either from other members or from members of the general public, coming to recommendations, making recommendations to the House.
Even the House is required by this legislation to promptly decide on whether or not it wishes to accept the recommendations of the Integrity Commissioner and what disposition it would make of a review.
So I think there is a certain amount of competition with me in the unveiling of new attire in the House, but it is very attractive.
I hope the witnesses will also receive those attractive T-shirts which I presume are in celebration of the session under the midnight sun, which I am honoured to take part in.
Before I recognize Ms. Williams, I'd like to inform the members and visitors that we are putting on our t-shirts because it is after midnight now and if you go outside, the sun is still out.
We are meeting under the midnight sun.
And for the visitors, even though it's after midnight, a lot of the visitors are still here and we appreciate that you are able to be here and during the month of May and June the sun is always out.
I'm not done asking questions yet.
You have to pay attention now.
This question could be answered yes or no.
So, will this Act apply to senior members of the public service, such as Deputy Ministers in the government.
Hon. Kelvin Ng: No, it doesn't Mr. Chair.
But there are other provisions and policies and guidelines in respect to government employees and it is, the government is looking at trying to revamp some of those policies and procedures and look at how we can try to improve them.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Ng. Member for Baker Lake, Mr. McLean.
Mr. McLean: Koana Itsivautaq.
I just want to follow up on a question my colleague Rebecca Williams asked in regards to Deputy Ministers and senior civil servants having to follow this Act and maybe, you know, it's a good move that they don't have to follow.
I'm sure there's old policies and procedures in place for civil servants in regards to conflict of interest.
It's no secret with decentralization and the government being closer to people that there's going to be more senior bureaucrats and civil servants living in communities and in most cases they have an opportunity to get in business as much as anybody.
Do you foresee a separate Act covering all the civil servants in conflicts of interest.
Because they'll be out there applying for the same grants and contributions and contracts down the road as the private sector will be and I foresee some clashes starting to happen.
So, is it just going to be each department make up their own policy and procedure or will it be a whole new Act come forward or policy come forward that will blanket the whole civil service.
The government is reviewing our current versions of what we have to govern our senior managers and employees right now.
It's a bit premature to say whether we would enact legislation.
But it certainly an issue that we are trying to make some progress on and trying to improve and make things clearer and obviously try to eliminate any potential for conflict of interest for our senior managers, Deputy Ministers and employees.
The reason I bring this up is that Nunavut is a new territory, we are looking for investment and a lot of senior civil servants and civil servants have good pay cheques and they also have good equity.
In their homes, in their bank accounts and we don't want to discourage them from investing in Nunavut because they are stakeholders in the territory also.
But my fear is do we want the civil servants to be in direct competition with the private sector and that's again where I'm saying as long as something comes out it doesn’t have to be legislation as long as it's a policy that everybody can identify and look at in regards to being likened to what we are looking at passing tonight.
So will the government commit to bringing this forward in the near future or is it just something that is going to be put off to the side for awhile.
No, Mr. Chairman, it is something that the government is serious about.
But having said that we wanted to wait, certainly for ourselves as the leaders, to enact our own Integrity Act so that we can say that we as the elected leaders have put ourselves in the highest ethical position in trying to deal with this issue and we would expect that our civil servants would follow suit.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Ng. Mr. McLean.
I will try not to keep you up much later here tonight cousin.
But there are just a few questions that I would like to ask.
Just a last comment on that and I don't want to sound like I am picking on the senior civil servants or the bureaucracy, but in all cases, in most cases if not all of them, they have more inside information on the government than MLAs and maybe even cabinet ministers.
But that's just a comment.
My next question is, in regards to section 36, "Any person, including a member who believes on reasonable grounds that a member has contravened this Act, may request the Integrity Commissioner to review the facts and give a written report on the matter".
Is this new to what it used to be, and why.
Mr. Chairman, no it is not new, because as members may recall, it was probably more politics involved in the past than conflict complaints by members filing against members in the NWT legislature.
We are fortunate that we haven't had a situation like that yet in Nunavut and hopefully with the passage of this bill, the possibilities are minimized if members follow the advice and regularly confer with the Integrity Commissioner to ensure that they are not put into a situation where they could possibly be in a conflict of interest.
Mr. McLean: Koana, Itsivautaq.
It says, the part that I actually noticed, does that mean any citizen of Nunavut can come in and file a conflict of interest allegation against an MLA.
Was it always like that.
So that was always the case, because like I say I am new to this Legislative Assembly and I am still a bit of a rookie.
So that was the same as it used to be in the existing legislation and it hasn't changed.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. McLean. Minister Ng.
Yes that's the case. It hasn't changed from that respect from the existing Conflict of Interest Act.
Sorry, the existing Legislative Assembly and Executive Council provisions and the new Integrity Act provisions.
Any individual if they feel that there is a potential for a conflict of interest may lay a complaint or ask that the Integrity Commissioner investigate in any circumstances in relation to the member's activities.
This will be my final question and it is almost frivolous.
If somebody in a community wanted to file a conflict of interest allegation against an MLA, the person certainly wouldn't go in and ask the MLA where the office is.
How is the general public going to be involved in knowing that this Integrity Act is going to be out there for the people to protect them from potential corruption or whatever conflicts or integrity in the government.
So if a person, a citizen of Nunavut wanted to file a conflict of interest complaint against an MLA, what is the procedure out there for just a simple person out there on the street to do.
How are they going to know about it and who do they contact.
Mr. Stanbury: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the honourable member looks further into section 36 he'll note that whether it be a Member of the Legislative Assembly or anyone else this is not something that people are invited to do lightly.
It's a, they have to approach it responsibly and therefore there is a procedure to follow.
But this, I think this Act will be already be on the website of the Legislative Assembly, as soon as it's passed.
Perhaps it's on as a bill now.
But the public has immediate access to all the provisions of this Act on the Legislative Assembly website and it is my plan to have a website for the Office of the Integrity Commissioner, which will perhaps explain in briefer terms for public consumption and for that matter for the ease of the members how to go about accessing this statute, the procedures of this statute.
There will probably have to be as well, a brochure so that people who don't have access to the electronic means of information will also be able to get that information readily.
And if members have any other suggestions, I think members themselves of course, recognize a responsibility and an opportunity to educate and inform their own constituents about all matters involving the territorial government.
And I think members will probably use this statute as an educational tool, one member already tonight has mentioned the importance of youth in the community, I hope this statute can be used not only to inform the community but, not only to inform the Members of the Legislature and inform youth but to inspire all those people.
To realize that the standards and the principles of the Members of the Legislative Assembly are very high and they are willing to be held to those standards.
Chairperson (interpretation): The last person to ask a question is Mr. Arvaluk.
Mine will be very short.
Before I get to my question on a different page, I'd like to go back a little bit to what Mr. Iqaqrialu was asking the House Leader since this is not a regular members and the ministers debate here as House Leader with everyone else in the House.
About where is the traditional knowledge in this legislation.
I'd like to assure the public that there is in every aspect inclusion of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, if we would have read a little further on page 5 of the House Leader's statement, it is this Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit that is providing an advice to members.
Ensuring an emphasis on prevention rather than simply punishment, that is an IQ.
He was also stating that maybe traditional knowledge, maybe something like what we would have known 60 years ago.
Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is everywhere, in schools. Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is also present in every life that they have known a long time ago.
To date we have the kamotik as Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, we did not invent the kamotik.
That's old skills still used today.
A lot of things are being improved through Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, by recognition that traditional knowledge works and is still the best method, of us having that principle.
Traditional knowledge in hunting is still used today.
A lot of things are still used today.
I just want to make that clear so that the public are not confused about traditional knowledge that has been forgotten.
We are talking about traditional knowledge that is still known for our assistance.
My question is on page 12 of the House Leader's statement.
He stated that the new Act recognized that as Nunavut moves forward in its economic development, it will be increasingly important that individuals that enter public life are not required to sever all connection to their private businesses.
I guess my question is, this statement is only good to the term but not for the renewal on the private business, unless the Commissioner approves and authorizes for it to be renewed for the private business.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Arvaluk. Which of you wishes to respond to the question.
I am not certain, neither of us is certain what the question was.
Maybe if the member could try to re-phrase or clarify that.
This paragraph seems to indicate that the minister can continue to carry on his private business.
What I am reading from the statute or the bill is that you can carry on your business if you had a business before you were elected or became a minister, but if you get elected again and become a minister again, you cannot be continue, you cannot be renewed on the government contracts or things like that unless you are authorized by the Integrity Commissioner.
Mr. Ng. Sorry.
The honourable member is correct that, if he is referring to a government contract, a member who has a government contract, or has a company with a government contract, would not be able to renew that government contract after his election without either the business being put into a blind trust before that should happen, or it should be authorized explicitly by the Integrity Commissioner.
Insofar as carrying on business generally is concerned that applies only to ministers and ministers as I mentioned in a response to another member are more restricted in carrying on any kind of outside activity without the authority of the Integrity Commissioner in any particular case or having had a blind trust approved by the Integrity Commissioner.
So, I hope that response to the honourable members question if not I'd be glad to supplement my answer.
Chairperson (interpretation): If there are no more questions after Mr. Arvaluk's question I was going to suggest a break for fifteen minutes.
At this time I will recess, we will recess for fifteen minutes and we will get back.
>>House recessed at 12.30 a.m. and resumed at 12.54 a.m.
Chairperson (interpretation): Good morning…
…I still have some names of people who want to speak or do you want to go line by line or clause by clause.
Do you want to go clause by clause now.
Chairperson (interpretation): We are under Bill 7, Integrity Act.
I have a short question, I would like to welcome the people at the witness table and I believe that this Act is very good for the members and the ministers.
I have nothing against the Act but I have a question being an elder and being an Inuk.
My question is the Integrity Commissioner says that if a person breaks the law, if the member breaks the law they have to pay either a fine or they have to go to court but following Inuit traditional knowledge in that part of the punishment and the paying restitution where does the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit come in, in that part or in that section of the Act.
Mr. Stanbury: Mr. Chairman, certainly the intention of the Act is that this would be a particularly important stage of any consideration of an activity by a member a particularly important stage for calling on the wisdom of elders, not only in terms of the assessment of the seriousness of the contravention but in terms of appropriateness of the suggested sanction.
Certainly, a fine is one of the alternative sanctions as it is in the present law and the provision for recovering of any financial sanction in court is partly to recognize some people against whom costs might be ordered would not be Members of the Legislature.