Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on Mrs. Groenewegen’s questions to the Premier on Cabinet coming into our region. Some of our regions that we represent have four or five or six communities. Sometimes when we ask Cabinet Ministers, through their busy schedule sometimes it’s a quick visit in or a quick visit out, or we can do two communities rather than three communities. Sometimes we are left with why our community didn’t get the Premier or Cabinet Minister. We have to do a very careful balancing act on how we sort that out.
I want to ask if he would look at when they do, when he talks to his Cabinet Ministers, there are other factors to take into consideration, but if you make every effort that the Premier comes to our region more than once or twice in the Assembly. That they come at least a minimum of a couple times into our region for the first or second or third or fourth year and that we see them not only once or twice during Assembly time. That they make their visits to our region and, like Mrs. Groenewegen says, stay and visit our people, enjoy our people, rather than do a quick trip in and out.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
We can develop guidelines. I think that if we commit to only going to a region when you can go to every community in the region, I think it would detract from the ability for Ministers or myself to go into a region. A lot of times you only have a day or two days there if you go into a region. If you commit, let’s say, going to the Sahtu and going to all five communities and if you have to spend six days or block off six days to be able to go there, a lot of times it’s very hard to find a block of six days to go into a region.
I think that we could agree to a guideline, but to be able to commit to that we’re going to, between now and the end of this government, go to the Sahtu four times a year or something like that, I think it would be difficult to adhere to. If we could say maybe we’ll try to go once or twice during the life of the government, then we could probably do that.
If we were to work together in consensus building and collaboration, I like what the Premier said to develop guidelines. It’s very easy to go to one location and spend two or three days there. There are communities that only have one location to go to. In Yellowknife you can walk around the blocks. You have the Ministers all living here. That’s where we get the issue of small communities and larger centres. If there are two or three communities you can hit, fine, but sit down and let’s talk about it. There are how many communities you can visit a year? Well, that’s something that I’d like to talk about. Come on. Give us a chance over here in the small communities. Have a heart, Mr. Premier.
I ask Mr. Premier if he’s willing to look at some basic guidelines for the small communities when the Ministers come into our communities, to take some out of your busy schedule and visit the people that put us here, the real people.
I think the reality is we have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. We always make it a part of our busy schedule to try to get to every one of our communities in the North. Some of my long-term colleagues indicate that to do the circuit of 33 communities it will take 18 months. If you take that into consideration, I think that we’re probably looking at trying to get to every community two times during the life of the 17th Assembly.
That’s something we can talk about. The Premier has put up some very good arguments, but realistically you go to Yellowknife and how long are you here? You can go around any block. You can go to small communities, visit. We have to get realistic here. It’s really good to see Cabinet Ministers when they come into my region. You visit me. I really appreciate that. We’ve had some good meetings with the previous government here. It’s realistic. Sometimes you may not want to travel to our communities because of the weather and other functions, but when they can do it, they can do it. You can go to Inuvik and Smith and Hay River in one visit. We have to get realistic here and not put it out of context. Have a heart when you look at it and come and visit our people. Visit my people. They appreciate it.
Most of my colleagues that have been here before have been to all 33 communities or most of the 33 communities. I like to travel to the communities and we’ll all do everything as humanly possible to get to the communities as many times as possible.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to say to the Premier that I look forward to the humanistic possibilities of what he can do to come into our small communities. I look forward to his position when we ask that question again, either in the halls or in the office or he can come and visit me also.
