Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, I would think that that priority is actually going along quite well. I've said since the beginning that the biggest thing within the United Nations Declaration is it's about Indigenous people and Indigenous people should take the lead.

We also have a special committee from the Speaker's Committee that has Members of Cabinet and the Regular Members. The chair of that comes to our meetings with Indigenous governments. And the Member did say that I have often referred to the relationship with Indigenous governments and the federal government in a triangle. I don't...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The contractor is D.J. DeLancey Consulting, and the work that that consulting firm would be doing is a planned phased approach. There's three phases. The first one will be one-on-one meetings with senior managers, which has been done. The second phase of the work to be done is facilitated decisionplanning meetings, developing the questions that need to be asked. That's taking place early in January I believe. And the third phase is the facilitated discussions and a final report.

So like I said, we don't know what's going to come out of that, but we need to remain open so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned a few weeks previously, we started with looking at the regional decision-making by doing a review of job descriptions, and we found that there was no discrepancy. But we know there's discrepancies. So we have got together with the we did a questionnaire with regional senior managers to identify training. They did bring up training. But they also identified other things that were happening as was said; you know, the feelings that there's an unequal balance between headquarters in the regional centres.

So based on that, and recognizing that often it's not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do need to make sure that the Indigenous governments know that I'm standing up for them and that I do not believe that nothing has happened. I believe that a lot of work has happened on that initiative. Other than the Mineral Resources Act, this is the first time that we are working together strong, meeting regularly to co-developing a legislative act with them. And this is the first time, in the history of the territorial government, that we brought all the leaders together as the Council of Leaders to be able to do this work. So I would say a lot has happened, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure if that's on the same line of questioning as the United Nations Declaration but I will say that I have put my name out there and said to the Indigenous governments that I will stand by them on what their definition what they want to do with that.

My understanding is that the Dene Nation is taking the lead on that and, again, we're willing to stand behind them and work with them as they see fit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the working group, or planning committee, has ten members, regional and headquarters senior managers. We looked for volunteers to start with and then if we didn't get enough volunteers, we did get people nominated by deputy ministers based on their experience working with both the regions and headquarters and to make sure that we provided a broad representation of the departments that are represented on the regional management committees. I said that they'd be meeting in early in January. It's actually late January, I forget it's Christmas, to develop the approach...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The determination of when borders open and when we'll need enforcement is a determination made by the CPHO. However, I can say that the CPHO has been vocal in saying that we're suspecting that by spring that we will be calling off the public health emergency and if do that, then there will be no border patrols. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know that the community was very concerned about COVID, and so I do know that once we reach a certain population that we opened it up a little bit more. But people businesses do have to reach out and let us know when they're coming. So we're trying to work with them as much as possible but we're also trying to make sure that communities are safe. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, I thought that was going to be easy but it's not quite as easy as I thought. I'd have to get back to the Member and find out the exact hours of operation, because we have three border crossings so I'm not a hundred percent sure. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know you can leave any time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, the border open was specifically made to address the needs of truckers coming into the communities, needing to drop off supplies, etcetera. So that's been taken into account. Most of the trucking companies, speaking of almost two years, are well aware of the times of operation. If there's anyone that is not, they are required if they're an occasional user, they are required to file a selfisolation plan and therefore hopefully will identify what they need and we can get back to them on that. But if anyone has issues and can't access it and can't get...