Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I had a question for the Minister of Finance, but I just want to say what the Minister from ECE said about having plans to move forward and taking steps to be more open and transparent to the people of the Northwest Territories. They deserve that. With that, my question to the Minister of Finance is: would the Minister commit to having the Department of Finance do more public communications around the budget process, including supplementary appropriations? Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an occasion where I'm tempted to simply say, "Yes," and sit down, but perhaps I'll elaborate. I'll elaborate very briefly, only in that this is a conversation that we've already been having in the Department of Finance, recognizing that what the finance department does can sometimes seem unnecessarily opaque, and it doesn't need to be that way. In my past life, a lot of what I often did was translate things from legalese into good public communication, and it is my hope to bring some of that to what happens in our Department of Finance so that we can all better understand the documents. So I certainly will do that, and I'll certainly be going to the Members as I'm working through with different ways we can do that.
I can say that we have already set up, this Friday, an opportunity for media to have a conversation with myself about the process of the budget and how a budgeting process unfolds and how that comes together, in the hopes that, as we move through this session, the public is better informed as to the different stages of what happens throughout the year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the response from the Minister. Not quite what I wanted to hear, but, you know, I try to look at it this way: the States have the CIA; Canada has CSIS. You know, they have their secret committees, but we're the GNWT. We're a consensus government. I think we need to be more open, wherever we can, and I'm hoping that that's the way moving forward. People deserve transparency, as I mentioned earlier. I guess my next question is: can the Minister commit to having the department do more to inform the public about the various GNWT budgets, such as the capital budget and the main estimates, and have a little more of an education piece for the public?
Again, the short answer is yes. I'm more than prepared to make that commitment. So, in addition to the fact that there is an effort to have some general media engagement this coming Friday about how a budget process unfolds, in addition to that, we're already working on having a bit more of a social media strategy to introduce people to the different parts of a budget and to the different processes. There has been some information already going out on social media to that regard. We are also actively, right now, working with stakeholder organizations across the Northwest Territories, in order to provide them with opportunities to have sort of budget fundamentals, to understand what the process is, understand what the budgets are, and we certainly look forward to being able to bring that kind of presentation out into the public in many forums.
So, again, the short answer is yes. The long answer is we're already doing some of that work and we're going to continue to find ways to do that work. It is certainly of interest to me to make sure that people who are coming to the government, who are asking for support for various projects, understand the best possible time to do that, understand what goes into that process, so that, when they come forward, they can give all the best possible information to the right parties early on, so that we can actually deliver on a budget that is effective and that does achieve the priorities of the people of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam lake.
