Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, we feel that it’s important for us to fulfill our new responsibilities by having better communications, functions and structures, and in order to meet these requirements we’re requesting funding that has been through the devolution transitional funding which will provide for three additional positions, three in the corporate communications and two in the Cabinet communications. This is an opportunity to provide communications that would respect our unique northern cultures and also fulfill a lot of the principles that we’ve talked about, to ensure the public is...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Jackson Lafferty will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the Truth and Reconciliation Commission closing events in Ottawa. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If it’s a delay, then we’ll have the same problems that were identified in the communications review and we would not be able to provide the new services that will allow us to fulfill the new responsibilities that we have taken over.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We’ve broken it out into two functions. One is corporate communications, that’s communications coming from the departments whereby the departmental people know what’s going on and they’re communicating to the public and operational requirements and so on; and we also have Cabinet communications where we communicate new changes, new policies, explain new ways of doing business to the public and to the rest of the people in the Northwest Territories.

The review that was done concluded that the GNWT communications function is not being managed strategically. Communicators are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did a communications review that looked at all of our responsibilities. They also interviewed deputy ministers and senior management and offered to interview MLAs. We also recognize the fact that, as we stated, we have new authorities, new legislation and program responsibilities, and also the communications environment is changing very rapidly with the advent of social media, 24/7 news cycles, and we also focused on communications professions standards such as communications policy, currency and congruence, strategic management of the communications function...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to recognize my niece Kathy Makela, who is visiting from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Kathy is a lawyer with the Native Law Centre there.

I’m also pleased to recognize the presidents of teachers’ federations from across Canada here today. Carol Jolin, president, Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-Ontariens; Mark Ramsankar, president, Alberta Teachers’ Association; Dianne Woloschuk, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation; Susan Swackhammer, first vice-president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario; Norm Gould, president of...

Mr. Speaker, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be holding its closing events from May 31st to June 3rd in Ottawa. This is time to reflect, and I would like to express my appreciation for the great work accomplished by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The work that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has done in the Northwest Territories and across Canada has been a critical step in the healing process for people suffering from the abuse and trauma of residential schools.

It has been no small task. The commission visited our communities, set up supports and provided a forum...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for clarification, I would like to point out that we wrote to the chair of the Standing Committee on Priorities on November 6th, offering a briefing of committee and asking for comments by December 1, 2014. We did get some feedback dated December 5th. I don’t have a date stamp on the actual day we received it, but those were communications that happened at the front end. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did have that discussion and our estimation was that five would fill the requirements that were identified after the communications review. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize members from the Braden family in the gallery: Carmen Braden and her partner, Eli Purchase; Laurie Nowakowski and her partner, Andrew Robinson. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.