Caroline Cochrane

I'm conscious of time. We began the process of developing the mandate from the list of priorities approximately a month ago. We are still in the draft stage. We are presenting to standing committee again, I believe, on the 14th, and that will be a process. We have committed to tabling our mandate in the next sitting in February. We will abide by that.

My fear is that providing the mandate letters after that will take another two or three months, and so what I am proposing is that Regular Members who have an interest in having some feedback into the mandate letters, aside from the mandate...

Absolutely. I think that the mandate letters are necessary. They provide a guideline for what I expect from Ministers. They also provide a tool that can be used by the Premier to judge if the Ministers and the departments are complying with the mandates for the Legislative Assembly.

I will continue that process. I had said that before. I will have my own. I know that the mandate will be developed by all of us in this Assembly, taking ownership as Cabinet for the final document, but I have said time and time again during when I was elected and before I was elected that one of the components that...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome all my colleagues to this sitting of the Legislative Assembly. I also want to thank them on behalf of Cabinet and myself for selecting us for the Executive Council. You have chosen a hard-working, strong Cabinet that is committed to working collaboratively with Regular Members in the interest of all residents of the Northwest Territories.

I am proud to take my seat here in Canada's first and only gender-balanced Legislature. Women make up half the population and, now, half of our representatives in this Assembly. We have a responsibility to serve as a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize part of my family and my team. Ms. Coco Paulette; Mr. Dylan Dawe, my son; Bonita, my adopted sister; Karen Cassaway, another half-sister from any different mother; my partner, Rory Styan; my sister, Gladys Bilande; my mother, Shirley Cochrane; my sister, Margaret Cochrane; my brother, Stanley Cochrane; my team, Cathy; my team, incredible team for helping me, Tina and Tram and Moira, I see up there. David, I see, is my constituent. I can't see in back of me. I apologize if I have missed anyone. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know you are going to get mad at me, but I want to take a moment more, probably. I want to start by recognizing the Native Women's Association of the Northwest Territories. I am not going to read off their names, but I want to say that this organization has stuck behind me 100 percent for the last four years with no lateral violence, with no backhand. They have been behind me as an Indigenous woman. I sincerely thank you for what you do for Indigenous women. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to recognize in the House my sister-in-law, Karen Cochrane, who is here...

Mr. Speaker, today there are increasing numbers of women leaders who are working at the local and regional level for the betterment of our communities, but only a handful of women have ever taken seats in this Legislative Assembly. Mr. Speaker, it's time to change that. Our governing bodies should be representative of the populations they serve, and women make up half of our population. We need more women in political leadership at all levels, but especially here in this House.

We are seeing progress. The municipal elections in the fall of 2018 saw several women being elected into positions as...

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to thank everyone in this Assembly. It has been an interesting process. I think that most people know that, when I came in, I was pretty street-knowledged, knew a lot about programs with my background, and knew nothing about politics.

I have learned over the four years. I thank the people who have brought that to me and provided that knowledge. I think that we have done some great jobs working this Assembly, and not everyone, but I think that I have also made some great friendships in this Assembly as well, and that is something that I will carry with me, as...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do want to clarify, it's not like the capital city, Yellowknife, has been neglected in this. The MLA had brought up the name of the Yellowknife Daycare Society. That daycare society, that infrastructure building was provided free of cost for decades within this community. We haven't done that in other communities. So Yellowknife hasn't been neglected in that. The reason I'm working with smaller communities is they don't have any daycares. They have zero daycares. Some of them have zero early childhood programming, period. So I always say a society is judged by how we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What I should clarify is that any other partnerships that we're talking about at this point is not that the GNWT would take on the capital for childcare facilities in schools, or healthcare facilities in schools. It's a partnership, so part of the partnership is working together, putting money together, making it best for their communities.

The school in Tuktoyaktuk at this point is just looking at school updates and a renovation, but there is no plan at this time to put a childcare facility in that school, as far as I know. I haven't had conversations with that community...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, within our capital budget process, childcare facilities are not identified as a capital project. We've never done that. It does need to be something, I think, that needs to be looked at in the next Legislative Assembly. However, in saying that, though, I have been working with communities. Any new school that is on the books and that I have gotten into and talked to, we're actually working closely with them; it's not only childcare centres that we're looking at. It's making schools hubs of communities. I have really been focusing with the community governments...