Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although I heard three questions in there, I think all of them belong to the Minister of Health. I'd like to defer it to the Minister of Health. Thank you.

For.

Abstain.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the Member always looking at this. It's really important work, the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples. However, I keep having to remind Members that this work is done by Indigenous people in partnership with us. They're taking the lead on this. And so as when that work plan will be done, there is a working group of which the GNWT has one Member and all the Indigenous governments have membership on that. So I can't say at this point when that work will be done. It's contingent on when the Indigenous governments have said "we're done." Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually the request to look at the programs across to see if our programs and services align with the United Nations declaration was done by all of the departments across the GNWT. However, it was also that information was also provided to our special committee on reconciliation. I want to make sure I got the Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs as a part of the research that was compiled to be able to provide the interim report.

I do know that the Member is part of that committee and had access to that information. But right at this moment that information is not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to acknowledge, again, and thank the Member for when he did his opening comments today in talking about the issue, talking about we can't do this unilaterally, I agree 100 percent. Nothing about us without us is a comment to be pointed with me.

We did bring the concerns to the Council of Leaders table and stated when legislation that we're getting I'm getting pushed in the House to get legislation across by MLAs and then gave them a timeline of when we could expect what work had to be done before legislation could be done to get into this term of this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're always trying to improve our services, programs and services. I'm just thinking a couple of them that stick off my head right now are the Indigenous Government Procurement Policy. That has never been attempted in any government that I know of before this so that's work that we're starting now. And then of course the government already has their mandatory Living Well Together, which is an Indigenous cultural awareness and sensitivity training that we're asking every employee and every MLA to actually review. So that services people. All staff are more cognitive of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to also recognize the officers that are here in respect, but I also want to recognize Lorne Hudson who I believe is a constituent of Range Lake, so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start today by acknowledging the devastation experienced by residents in Hay River, K’atlodeeche First Nation, and West Point First Nation. Thousands of residents were forced to leave their homes and their lives behind earlier this month when floodwaters rose to unprecedented levels in the area.

Last week I visited the three communities with, the Honourable Shane Thompson, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs; the Honourable Caroline Wawzonek, Minister of Finance; and the Honourable Diane Archie, Minister of Infrastructure, to assess the situation and meet...

This isn't my report so I shouldn't actually be on the stand. But in fairness, I will answer that question because it's an easy one. If you give me a hard one, I'm not answering it.

But really there is three roles. So we've always had the Intergovernmental Council that was formed part of devolution, it was before my time, the previous Premier. And the Intergovernmental Council is strictly around land and resources and royalties. I mean, that's their whole goal. But I noticed even with the last government that I was in, and this government, is that there was always issues brought up at that...