by Cheryl Leschasin
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 22/97) - Despite strong public input, community hearings and requests from groups such as Out North, same-sex couples won't be considered spouses under a proposed new law.

"It was not brought up," said Kelvin Ng, minister of health and social services.

Proposed amendments to four acts knows as the family law bills were heard Thursday in Yellowknife in the legislature during a public clause-by-clause review.

Zoe Raimer, president of Out North, said that she was disappointed that the change was not discussed, but promised the issue will not be laid to rest.

"We're certainly not going to give up," said Raimer, who plans to continue contacting MLAs about issue, in an effort to produce a change at the next hearing, scheduled for October.

Changes that were proposed were mostly matters of housekeeping. "A lot of it was points of clarification,' said Ng.

"As a synopsis, for bills 3, 4 and 6, about 20 to 25 motions were passed on each bill," said committee clerk David Inch.

Bill 5, the Adoption Act, will be entirely rewritten. "The layout was the problem," said Ng.

"There was confusion in the way it was drafted," said Inch. Specifically, there was difficulty distinguishing between step-parent adoption, private adoption and departmental adoption.

The bill will be re-drafted with proposed amendments and re-introduced into the legislature at the same time as the Family Law Act, the Children's Law Act and the Child and Family Services Act, in early October.