Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Premier if he could list for us again what information we’ve been working off of as Members with respect to the strategic initiative committees, Cabinet committees, Ministerial committees that were formed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of initiatives and times that I’ve communicated to Members of the Assembly and to the public regarding the actions we are undertaking as a new government and the direction we are trying to set and some of the changes.
For example, Mr. Speaker, in the Budget Address I gave information on the fact that we would be dealing with the strategic initiative committees. In the letters that I sent to the Ministers on their mandates, I copied those letters to the Chair of P and P and outlined all the initiatives there. Building Our Future, Refocusing Government, Managing This Land, Maximizing Opportunities, Reducing the Cost of Living, approaches to regionalization of government, reductions, oversight and federal engagement: all were some of the areas that different Ministers had. That was copied to Members. As well, we’ve had a number of times when we’ve sat down and offered briefings and had briefings around these strategic initiative committees.
The Premier is absolutely right: we have had an exchange and a dialogue on these strategic initiative committees. The one that has come to light most recently, which I’m a little bit curious about and do not recall having seen it referred to before, is the one on the regionalization of government. Could the Premier perhaps outline what the mandate of that particular committee would be?
Again, that was when I wrote to Ministers on their strategic initiatives. In highlighting all of those areas — that was back in January — this one, approaches to regionalization of government, was looked at. In one of my statements in this House I referenced the fact that this regionalization of government would look at the GNWT and how it can increase flexibility and responsiveness at regional and community levels. I pointed to the possibility that the honourable Member for Sahtu may oversee that. We’re again re-evaluating who would be leading that initiative. We haven’t structured it. There have been no terms of reference put forward at this time. Instead, we contacted committee in the past on the rural and remote communities’ work that would plug into this as well.
So the particular strategic initiative committee on the regionalization of government was not one of the original five? Or was it a subcommittee of one of the original five? Because the ones that the Premier formerly noted — Refocusing Government, Maximizing Opportunities, Building Our Future, Managing This Land — were definitely part of the original five. We were aware of who the ministerial lead would be on those and who else would comprise the rest of those particular initiative committees. So what’s the status of the one on the regionalization of government at this time?
This was one of the ones that was communicated to Ministers, and those letters were forwarded to Members of the Assembly. The approaches to regionalization of government was one of those. We haven’t put the energy into that file, because most of the energy has gone into the Refocusing Government initiative.
In my Budget Address back in May I also referenced that this was work we would be looking at. There hasn’t been a lot of energy put into that, as we were, again, putting the energy into Refocusing Government and a number of the other initiatives. We still have to come up with the terms of reference. That is one of the ones we’d like to get to work on, and we’ll have to discuss that approach within Cabinet and with Members.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 5 on the order paper.
Unanimous consent granted.
We will return to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
