Merci, Monsieur le President. My question's for the Premier as the head of the government.
I said I was caught by surprise by the recent announcement of the merger of Environment and Natural Resources with Lands without an opportunity for input from this side of the House or the public.
Can the Premier explain this decision and tell us what background information or studies were done for this merger and share that with us and the public? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Madam Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So way back when devolution occurred in the last Assembly, actually Assembly before that, the Department of Lands was created and the organizational structure of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources was changed. Some functions, in particular related to water, came to ENR, and others went to ENR, to Lands.
There was a commitment at the time to devolve and then evolve if needed after time was passed.
Since then, it became clear that there's a well, I'm missing a step.
First of all, there was a in my speech from to be Premier, Mr. Speaker, I said that I'd be looking at the Lands department and seeing if I could combine it with another department. I found in the last government that smaller departments often sometimes don't get the attention they needed because of the size of the departments and it's also a lot of departments for ministers. So there was a benefit to reorganization.
But when we did that work, we actually found that the department that I thought might be closer related was the wrong one. So it was clear that there was a closer intersection of some of the work with Lands and ENR.
I know that Members here have brought that up that inspections in contaminated sites, for example, that's how there's overlaps, securities in project assessments or others. So several concerns were also brought forward by the public and Indigenous governments and organizations regarding the confusion of what roles and responsibilities between the departments. The government renewal initiative to date identified close significant intersections between ENR and Lands.
So when we started this government, and the Members were provided a copy I believe, I had asked Minister Thompson to review the Lands and MACA organizational structure in this mandate letter. And I do believe Members were given a copy of the mandate letters. If not, let me know. If they're public I can give them to you.
And the Minister, in his work, decided that he wanted to include ENR as well to meet the commitment that was made at devolution.
As well, another MLA raised an oral question in this House in December of 2021 asking if we'd started the work. And I responded that it was underway and could be actioned in the life of the government.
So we did a jurisdictional scan of functions at Lands, MACA, and ENR across Canada, and after review, we decided that we actually had a private contractor do this work, and they the contractor developed four potential options that were reviewed by the deputy ministers, committee of Cabinet, and Cabinet.
The design process, when we bring it together, would be a collaborative process involving senior managers from both departments to ensure that we get it right. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Premier for that. That's way more information than was certainly in the news release. But I did ask her if she could share the background information. So I look forward to getting the consultant's report and I'd ask that the Premier also to make that public. So I look forward to getting that information. It's not clear what or who is driving this merger and how many staff may lose their jobs.
Can the Premier tell us who Cabinet consulted in making this the decision; was it the business community, Indigenous governments, or who? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start by saying that this merger of departments was definitely not about reducing costs or losing jobs. That is not my goal at all. It was just, like I said, one commitment was with devolution devolve and evolve.
The bigger thing for me was just my experiences in the last session and seeing the difficulties with smaller departments competing against bigger departments. So at this time, we're not looking at we're not expecting that this will be a cost saving endeavour. This is about making sure that the program's more effective and more efficient and better for the users in the end.
Who do we use? When devolution occurred, I'll bring it back there, the Department of Lands was created, and organizational structure of the Department of ENR changed. Some functions in particular related to water came to ENR and others went to ENR to lands. And those were some of the confusions we were having.
Since now, I mean now it's become clear that this close intersection of the work being done, and so we're looking at changing it sorry, I was reading the wrong answers.
So the decision was made on concerns that have been brought forward by clients and the experience of those working in and within the departments themselves. And again, my own interests and the promise with devolution to devolve and evolve.
Merging the departments is consistent in how the functions are organized in the majority of other Canadian jurisdictions. There's many examples to turn to existing within the GNWT and across the country on how to organize to support gathering information for and maintaining effective stewardship and regulatory functions where climate change fix within the new department will be a focus of this work as we go forward.
Again, Mr. Speaker, this is not a cost saving endeavour. This is about efficiency. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Premier for that. Maybe I'm out of order here, but I'm trying to get a commitment out of the Minister to sorry, my questions are out of order. I'm just trying to get a commitment out of the Minister to actually share the background report, tell us who was consulted in this decision. And I didn't get answers to those but I'll try something else now.
So I've raised many times the inherent conflict of interest with one department acting as a promotor of resource development and then regulating rights administration and royalties at the same time. We've got NGO community government support that I think would be better situated in the Executive.
You know, so can the Premier tell us what further government reorganization is being contemplated and whether this side of the House, and perhaps even the public, might be engaged? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time, there are no reorganizations being expected within the term of this government. It was a campaign commitment that was made and so following through with that. It was in a mandate that was followed through. There was no other identified reorganizations that were necessary. However, never say never. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I'm not sure where I'm getting with the Premier on this. But I'd hope that she would say that gee, sorry we missed you guys last time but we'll talk to you before we do any more reorganization.
I'd understood that the socalled "government renewal initiative" would be much further along by now, and that process would be a place where reorganizations and efficiencies would be driven. But that's not even referenced in the news release. It doesn't even mention the words "government renewal initiative."
So the can Premier tell us why the decision on the merger appears to have had nothing to do whatsoever with the government renewal initiative? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I think that they are kind of related in that the government's renewal initiative is looking at program evaluations, making sure that we're providing good programs for the money, bang for the buck. But the reamalgamation of departments, reorganization of departments, was not based on the government's renewal initiative. It was actually, like I said, it was a mandate letter of Premier's commitments from the beginning of the Assembly, before we were even talking about government renewal.
What I do want to say as well that the first phase of the government renewal was to develop the inventories that were to be completed in 20212022; that two departments, both ENR and Lands, did complete their government renewal inventories. And that's why when we started to realize there was more similarity in those programs than there was in the other organizational departments.
So with the substantial intersection, it made sense that we would start to look at combining those departments for our organizational design. I do really want to repeat to the public, to the staff, this is not a cost saving exercise. This is not about saving money and taking away jobs. This is about providing a more efficient and a more effective department so that services that you provide will actually be better for the public, which is our ultimate goal. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
