Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are in regards to the Emerging Stronger Plan, and they are for the Premier. I would like to start off by identifying which Minister is responsible for the Emerging Stronger Plan, and what role does Cabinet play in making decisions about the plan? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Right now, I am the Minister responsible for the Emerging Stronger Plan. We are working on it right now. What role does Cabinet have in making the plan? A lot.
I did hear the Member in her statement say that the business community has lost confidence in the Premier, and I am sorry to hear that. I heard that when we first said, "Lock down the borders," and I had to stand beside the CPHO and say that I support her orders. I heard it when we formed the secretariat, and I am hearing it now again.
I do want to say that there have been tough decisions. Members have said we have had tough choices to make. We have made tough choices, Mr. Speaker, and it has paid off. We are probably the only jurisdiction in Canada that hasn't had a death from COVID. We are probably one of the only jurisdictions in Canada that hasn't had to go into lockdown over Christmas.
What role does Cabinet have? People are thinking that we are only concerned about COVID. We are. The Minister of Health and myself are run ragged dealing with the health and safety of Members, but that's not the only work we are doing. I believe that everything in this session that we will be presenting to Members on the mandate process and most of them are on track, ironically. We thought that there would be exceptions, but other things have happened.
The Minister of ITI has been working with the business advisory council. Because of that work and her work, that's why we got the money from the federal government for tourism and the airlines that was brought in. The Minister of ECE, having to look at distance ed, became a reality all of a sudden, and the support for students because of that work. The Minister of housing working on bringing in shelters and dealing with homes and stuff. The Minister of Infrastructure, the biggest capital budget in the history of the Assembly. Mr. Speaker, we haven't forgotten. The Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, I have been working with the Indigenous governments on a weekly basis, almost, right through this. We are talking about economic agreements. We are talking about the Indigenous government procurement policy.
The work has not stopped, Mr. Speaker, is what I am saying, and all of Cabinet has a strong role to play. Not only Cabinet; we will be talking to Members, as well. All of us have a role to play. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I hear often from constituents that they are very happy with the state of the NWT as far as the safety and the health of our people. They are very excited to get vaccinated, and they're very enthusiastic about that. I encourage Cabinet to really share the successes that they have had and look forward to hearing more about that as we go through session, as well.
The fact of the matter is that, last year, residents were promised a plan, and so now they are looking for the plan and what the future of the NWT holds. What does it look like? How do we come back from this? How do we move into a polytechnic? How do we improve our education numbers? People are really looking to the government right now to identify what that plan is. I am wondering if the plan is to table the Emerging Stronger Plan over the course of this sitting, and if so, if that will be publicly done and if residents of the Northwest Territories will be able to see that?
During the process of doing the draft Emerging Stronger Plan, one of the first things that we did was look across the jurisdictions across Canada to see what they had done. Not all jurisdictions have plan. In fact, some jurisdictions are saying they are not doing plans. Some of them that did the plans earlier are now saying that they need to revisit them because they were done a little bit early. I mean, I don't think the timing is bad, like I said earlier in my first answer. We haven't forgotten the economy. We haven't forgotten people. In fact, it's made our services stronger over this last year because of the pandemic.
Will it be tabled in this session? I want to say yes, but Mr. Speaker, I have learned to be a little bit cautious with that. What I can commit to in this session is that that draft will be done. We have heard from stakeholders. We have heard from the business community, from the NGOs, from the Indigenous governments, from the MLAs, from the general public. We have heard the needs. We have heard the concerns. We are going to present a draft Emerging Stronger Plan that we will provide to the standing committee first, and then, once the standing committee has a chance to give us some feedback and stuff, if there is not too much, I would love to say we will be able to table it. I do commit that standing committee will see that draft.
No, that's very good news, and I understand that other jurisdictions may not have plans to create a plan. We started at a different place than other jurisdictions at the beginning of 2020, and so I think that it is important for us to recognize that and for us to be prepared. What I am wondering is if the Premier can speak to the type of key milestones a plan might have or that the public can expect to see, and when they would expect to see those key milestones turned into actions?
I can't say what the key milestones will be at this exact moment. That is the work that we are doing now. Like I said, we are working with all departments to consolidate all of this work. Not only the work that needs to be done, but the work we've done. The Member is right. Before COVID-19, our economy was in trouble. This is not new. This is something that we had faced, and the Members were wise when we developed the 22 priorities. A lot of that was around making sure that the economy was strong in the North. That work was going on before COVID, and it will continue to do. When we do present the draft Emerging Stronger within this sitting to the standing committee, you will see milestones, and I am hoping that we will be able to get some feedback from the Members on those milestones.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before the Emerging Stronger Plan discussions, we talked about the Emerging Wisely Plan, and that was really kind of the cornerstone event of how we were going to move on through lockdown into re-emerging from our homes and back into the world of the Northwest Territories as we know and love it. I am wondering if there is a plan from Cabinet to re-release that plan based on what we know now and what we can expect for the remainder of 2021 once people are vaccinated, once schools start to, they're going to close for the summer. They're going to reopen in the fall. People are starting to plan and prepare for that, especially when it comes to hiring of teachers, when it comes to plans for summer, plans for business. There is a lot of planning in all aspects of our lives, and so is there a plan from Cabinet to re-release Emerging Wisely so that people know kind of what to expect for the rest of 2021? Thank you.
Since that's the CPHO's office, I would redirect that to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question. As far as I know, the CPHO is not planning to re-release the Emerging Wisely Plan. I appreciate that the Member and the public want certainty about what's going to happen in 2021, but unfortunately, we're not in a position to provide that. Much of what is driving our response is happening outside of Canada, outside of the NWT. We know there are new infectious variants that are circulating. We don't have a lot of information about the vaccine potential to stop transmission. That is still being studied. We know that hospitals in the South are overwhelmed. While I appreciate the need for more certainty, we have a very limited amount of control over that, and really, it is only within the Northwest Territories. If we can stick to our containment and vaccination plan, then there will be loosened restrictions within the NWT, but I expect the border controls to remain in place for some time. Thank you.
