Northwest Territories Act (S.C. 2014, c. 2, s. 2)

Marginal note:Quorum

15 A majority of the members of the Legislative Assembly, including the Speaker, constitutes a quorum.

Marginal note:Rules

16 The Legislative Assembly may make rules for its operations and procedures, except in relation to the subjects set out in paragraph 18(1)(b).

Legislature of the Northwest Territories

Marginal note:Continuance

17 The Commissioner in Council as defined in section 2 of the former Act is continued as the Legislature of the Northwest Territories; the Legislature consists of the Commissioner and the Legislative Assembly.

Legislative Powers

Marginal note:Subjects

• 18 (1) The Legislature may make laws in relation to the following subjects in respect of the Northwest Territories:

  • (a) the election of members of the Legislative Assembly, including the name and number of electoral districts and the qualifications of electors and candidates;

  • (b) the disqualification of persons from sitting or voting as members of the Legislative Assembly and the privileges, indemnities and expenses of those members;

  • (c) the Executive Council;

  • (d) the establishment and tenure of public offices and the appointment, conditions of employment and payment of office-holders;

  • (e) municipal and local institutions;

  • (f) direct taxation and licensing in order to raise revenue for territorial, municipal or local purposes;

  • (g) the levying of a tax on furs — or any other parts of fur-bearing animals — that are to be shipped or taken from the Northwest Territories to any place outside the Northwest Territories;

  • (h) the incorporation of companies with territorial objects, except railway — other than street railway —, steamship, air transport, telegraph and telephone companies;

  • (i) the solemnization of marriage;

  • (j) property and civil rights;

  • (k) the administration of justice, including the constitution, maintenance and organization of territorial courts — of both civil and criminal jurisdiction — and procedure in civil matters in those courts;

  • (l) the establishment, maintenance and management of prisons and other places of confinement;

  • (m) the conservation of wildlife and its habitat;

  • (n) waters — the rights in respect of which are under the administration and control of the Commissioner — including the disposition under subsection 52(3) of those rights, the deposit of waste in those waters and what constitutes waste;

  • (o) education, but any law respecting education must provide that

    • (i) a majority of the ratepayers of any part of the Northwest Territories may establish any school in that part that they think fit and make the necessary assessment and collection of rates for it, and

    • (ii) the minority of the ratepayers of that part of the Northwest Territories — whether Protestant or Roman Catholic — may establish separate schools in that part and, if they do so, are liable to assessments of only the rates that they impose on themselves in respect of those schools;

  • (p) immigration;

  • (q) those public lands that are under the administration and control of the Commissioner, including their disposition under subsection 51(1);

  • (r) intoxicants, including what constitutes an intoxicant;

  • (s) hospitals and charities;

  • (t) agriculture;

  • (u) the entering into of intergovernmental agreements by the Commissioner or any other official of the Government of the Northwest Territories;

  • (v) the expenditure of money for territorial purposes;

  • (w) the adoption and use of an official seal;

  • (x) generally, all matters of a merely local or private nature;

  • (y) the imposition of fines, penalties, imprisonment or other punishments in respect of a contravention of a provision of a law of the Legislature; and

  • (z) any other subject that may be designated by order of the Governor in Council.

• Marginal note:Laws — intoxicants

  (2) The Legislature may make laws relating to the importation of intoxicants into the Northwest Territories from another part of Canada or elsewhere and defining what constitutes an intoxicant for the purposes of those laws.

Marginal note:Laws — natural resources

• 19 (1) The Legislature may make laws in relation to the following subjects in respect of the onshore:

  • (a) exploration for non-renewable natural resources;

  • (b) the development, conservation and management of non-renewable natural resources and forestry resources, including the rate of primary production from those resources;

  • (c) oil and gas pipelines that are situated entirely in the onshore;

  • (d) the development, conservation and management of sites and facilities for the production of electrical energy; and

  • (e) the export, from the onshore to another part of Canada, of the primary production from non-renewable natural resources and forestry resources and of the electrical energy that is produced in the onshore.

• Marginal note:Limitation — no discrimination

  (2) A law that is made under paragraph (1)(e) is not to authorize or provide for discrimination in prices or in supplies that are exported.

• Marginal note:Laws — taxation

  (3) The Legislature may make laws in relation to the raising of money by any mode of taxation in respect of resources referred to in paragraph (1)(b) and the primary production from those resources and in respect of sites and facilities referred to in paragraph (1)(d) and the production of electrical energy from those sites and facilities. The Legislature may make those laws even if the production is exported.

• Marginal note:Limitation — no differentiation

  (4) A law that is made under subsection (3) is not to authorize or provide for taxation that differentiates between production that is exported and that which is not.

• Definition of primary production

  (5) In this section, primary production means

  • (a) production from a non-renewable natural resource if

    • (i) it is in the form in which the resource exists on its recovery or severance from its natural state, or

    • (ii) it results from processing or refining the resource and is not

      • (A) a manufactured product, or

      • (B) a product that results from refining crude oil, refining upgraded heavy crude oil, refining gases or liquids derived from coal or refining a synthetic equivalent of crude oil; and

  • (b) production from a forestry resource if the product consists of sawlogs, poles, lumber, wood chips, sawdust or any other primary wood product — or of wood pulp — and is not manufactured from wood.

• Marginal note:No derogation

  (6) Nothing in subsections (1) to (5) derogates from any powers that the Legislature has under this Act.

Marginal note:Laws — access to lands and waters

20 The Legislature may make laws in relation to access to the public lands that are under the administration of a federal minister and to the waters overlying those lands, including the compensation that is to be paid in respect of that access.

Marginal note:Roads on Tlicho lands

21 Laws of the Legislature that are made in relation to public highways apply to roads identified in the Tlicho Agreement — as if they were on public lands — if the Tlicho Agreement provides that those laws apply to those roads.

Marginal note:Unitization of straddling resources

• 22 (1) Despite sections 18 and 19, the Legislature must not amend a law of the Legislature without the consent of the Governor in Council if the law as amended would

  • (a) affect the unitization of those straddling resources that are referred to in the Agreement for Coordination and Cooperation in the Management and Administration of Petroleum Resources in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region that was made on June 25, 2013, as amended from time to time; or

  • (b) limit how that agreement applies to or is implemented by the Government of the Northwest Territories.

• Marginal note:Canadian Energy Regulator

  (2) Despite sections 18 and 19, during the period of 20 years beginning on the day on which section 1 comes into force, the Legislature must not amend a law of the Legislature without the consent of the Governor in Council if the law as amended would affect the regulatory functions of the Canadian Energy Regulator in that part of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region — as defined in section 2 of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement — that is situated in the onshore.

Marginal note:Federal appurtenant undertakings

23 Only a federal minister may, in relation to a federal appurtenant undertaking, exercise the following powers and functions under a law of the Legislature:

• (a) approve the issuance, renewal or amendment of a licence permitting the use of waters or the deposit of waste in waters;

• (b) consent to a declaration by a water board that an amendment to such a licence — as a result of which the use, flow or quality of waters would be altered — is required on an emergency basis;

• (c) approve the form of any security posted in respect of such a licence;

• (d) hold and apply the security;

• (e) exercise powers that are substantially the same as those set out in section 39 of the Northwest Territories Waters Act, as it read immediately before the coming into force of section 1;

• (f) issue policy directions to a water board that may issue, renew or amend such a licence; and

• (g) designate inspectors and grant them powers that are substantially the same as those set out in section 37 or 44.02 of the Northwest Territories Waters Act, as they read immediately before the coming into force of section 1.

Marginal note:Composition of water board

24 For every five members who are appointed to a water board that may — under a law of the Legislature — issue, renew or amend a licence permitting the use of waters or the deposit of waste in waters, one must be nominated by a federal minister.

Marginal note:Restrictions on powers

• 25 (1) Nothing in subsection 18(1) or section 19 must be construed as giving the Legislature greater powers than are given to legislatures of provinces under sections 92, 92A and 95 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

• Marginal note:Water power

  (2) Despite subsection 18(1) and sections 19 and 20, the Legislature must not make laws in respect of the right to the use and flow of waters for the production or generation of water power to which the Dominion Water Power Act applies.

Marginal note:Agreement implementation Acts

26 Despite subsection 25(1), the Legislature may, in exercising its powers under sections 18 and 19 for the purpose of implementing an Aboriginal land claim agreement or a self-government agreement, make laws that are in relation to the matters coming within class 24 of section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

Marginal note:Laws — conservation of wildlife

27 Despite subsection 25(1), any law of the Legislature that is in relation to the conservation of wildlife applies, unless the contrary intention appears in it, to and in respect of Aboriginal people.

Marginal note:Laws — borrowing, making loans and investing

• 28 (1) The Legislature may make laws for the

  • (a) borrowing of money by the Commissioner on behalf of the Northwest Territories for territorial, municipal or local purposes;

  • (b) making of loans to persons; and

  • (c) investing by the Commissioner of surplus money standing to the credit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Northwest Territories.

• Marginal note:Restriction

  (2) The aggregate of all borrowings is not to exceed the maximum amount set under subsection (4).

• Marginal note:Charge on Consolidated Revenue Fund

  (3) The repayment of money borrowed under a law made under paragraph (1)(a) — and the payment of interest on that money — is a charge on and is payable out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Northwest Territories.

• Marginal note:Maximum amount — borrowings

  (4) The Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance, set the maximum amount of the aggregate of all borrowings.

• Marginal note:Regulations

  (5) The Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance, make regulations respecting borrowings for the purposes of subsections (2) and (4), including regulations

  • (a) respecting what constitutes, or is deemed to constitute, borrowing;

  • (b) respecting the entities, or classes of entities, whose borrowings are to be taken into account; and

  • (c) respecting the manner in which the value of a borrowing must be determined.