Mr. Speaker, I don't have any information at my fingertips right now as far as the you know, when these things will appear in the capital. I would love to get an update on that for committee, and I can commit to doing so. But, really, there's a lot of steps that need to happen before we end up with a bricks and mortar institution anywhere in the territory in addition to what we have right now. I know that in speaking to the board governors, their prime focus right now is student housing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I think that's the point of the new campus, is student housing. So what does the Minister know about student housing here in Yellowknife? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that the board of governors has identified that as their primary goal of how they'd like to start building some new infrastructure. They've identified that not just in Yellowknife but also in Fort Smith and also down the road in Inuvik. And I can also update this House that it is something that they're very focused on and that they acknowledge that it is a need in the territory in order to make sure that students have an opportunity to have somewhere to hang their head at night so that they can make it to class, and that place needs to, of course, be affordable. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's becoming increasingly obvious that there's a disconnect between the board of governors and the ministry. Can the Minister commit to working with the board of governors to better understand their needs at bringing a quantifiable, tangible, proposal forward to a standing committee of this House so we understand what they need to be successful in this transition? Because they are saying they are on a knife's edge, and I don't want to I, for one, don't want to see them teeter over. I want to see them succeed. I want to see our students succeed. It just seems like we're not at the same place here, and can the Minister commit to getting us to running the ship, getting us to where we need to be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I'm in a very interesting position where it's not really my story to tell. It's the Aurora College's story to tell. It's the board of governors' story to tell. So just like last time when I it's not my story to tell. So my last time when I was in front of this House, I recommended to committee that they have Aurora College in front of them. They have done that. And I recommend that they ask Aurora College what their schedule is as far as their master plan for their facilities and also for their housing and what they are doing in order to achieve those goals. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, the Minister gives that the institution $32 million, and then some, every year, so this is very much her story to tell because she's the one funding it. So will the Minister commit to, if not exploring how we can improve this relationship, putting some accountability matrix on that grant, so if Aurora College isn't hitting these timelines, isn't making progress, then they lose their grant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that it's fair to say that given the investment of dollars from the GNWT into the Aurora College transformation, along with the investment of dollars from the federal government into the transformation, that there are many people that want to see this happen. There's also a number of people who are sitting on the board who have said they are passionate about seeing this happen. It's also worthwhile acknowledging that the positions through the Aurora College transformation also came from the surplus of Aurora College. Aurora College carries a surplus. And so, Mr. Speaker, there are dollars that are available, and I think, yes, that there needs to be a conversation about how those dollars are being used to see this transformation through. I absolutely agree with the Member that a significant amount of public dollars go to Aurora College and fund Aurora College, and those dollars are approved by this House, Mr. Speaker, so I look forward to seeing how that conversation evolves on the floor of this House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 6319(2) Report on Bill 78: Waste Reduction and Resource Recovery Act; and Environmental Rights Act Annual Report 20232024. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of ECC. Tabling of documents. Minister of Justice.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Northwest Territories Law Foundation 41st Annual Report for the Period Ending June 30, 2023. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Tabling of documents. Minister responsible for NWT Power Corp.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: 20242025 Corporate Plan for the Northwest Territories Hydro Corporation and Northwest Territories Power Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, whereas Tabled Document 9420(1), 20242028 I have the wrong motion, Mr. Speaker, hold on. Yeah, okay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Whereas Tabled Document no it's the same one. Okay, I'm just going to move to the operative clause, Mr. Speaker.
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the Member for Frame Lake, that Tabled Document 6720(1), Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories 2023 to 2027, be referred to Committee of the Whole for consideration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? Those opposed? Abstentions? Motion has been carried.
Carried
Motions. Notice of motion for the first reading of bills. First reading of bills. Second reading of bills.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, Minister's Statement 420(1), Minister's Statement 520(1), Minister's Statement 1720(1), Minister's Statement 2420(1), Tabled Document 9320(1), Tabled Document 6720(1), with the Member from the Dehcho in the chair.
Good afternoon. Colleagues, I now call the Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 6720(1), tabled on May 23rd, 2024, in Committee of the Whole.
Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will proceed with the first item.
Committee, we will take a short recess and resume with the first item. Thank you.
SHORT RECESS
Thank you, committee. We have agreed to consider Tabled Document 6720(1), Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories 2023 to 2027. I will now open the floor to general comments on Tabled Document 6720(1).
Any Member may speak for up to ten minutes and may speak more than once. Any Members wish to speak? Ms. Morgan.
Thank you, Ms. Chair. I have to say I'm quite pleased overall with how the mandate for the 20th Assembly turned out. I can't say the same about the business plans, unfortunately, but I will say lots more about that tomorrow.
First, I feel that the development of the priorities was a collaborative process that all 19 of us could support and while the mandate itself wasn't exactly collectively authored by all of us and that as an aside is a wordsmithing exercise that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, done by a committee of 19 politicians. But there were numerous opportunities for both written and inperson feedback and discussion on the draft mandates.
One thing I appreciate, and I want to draw attention to because it was based on some suggestions by Regular Members, is an opening list of commitments about how the public service will do its work.
One of the most common messages I heard when I was campaigning last fall was the profound frustration with how the GNWT operates and the general workplace environment. In my opening speech last November, I said we will not accomplish any ambitious priority we set for ourselves in this Assembly until we get our House in order. So in the mandate, while it may be tempting to skip straight down to the bullet points under each priority area, I encourage folks to carefully review the opening where it states the public service is the GNWT's greatest resource and must be supported and respected with an environment that fosters a sense of purpose and wellbeing and empowers performance excellence and innovation. Our highly trained and dedicated public servants deserve to work in an environment that allows them to contribute to their fullest potential, that values and supports them in providing services with empathy and efficiency, and that encourages or rewards creativity and flexibility.
Now, Cabin Radio observed that some of the language used in the mandate would not be out of place in a wedding vow. That could spark some long and interesting discussions with the public and civil servants about the depth and steadfastness of anyone's love for the government. But there's no need for that debate today. I actually appreciate the tone of this mandate document. For me, it reads in an engaging, clear, and direct way, with language that humanizes what we're trying to do instead of the usual jargon and bureaucratese.
One of the commitments is to empower the public service by ensuring they're provided the flexibility to deliver programs and implement policies in ways that best serve residents. So that sounds simple, but if taken seriously it could be a profound shift in the way our government works. The government often retreats into the safety of focusing on processes, policies, frameworks, plans, strategies, and it measures its success by checking off the boxes when we've completed those things. The idea here would be to measure our success by whether we've actually helped people, made their lives better. So people would come first at the end of the day, not the letter of the policy.
In that same Cabin Radio article, the Premier related that commitment to putting people first to the need to increase the government's risk tolerance. So I agree that we should be talking more openly about risk tolerance in government. And that is unfortunately something that is missing from that list of commitments. I believe we need to enshrine a commitment to always consider, in every decision, not only the risks of new options but also the risks in maintaining the status quo. We're often biased towards accepting or just taking for granted the status quo, even when it is unjust, expensive, inefficient, while we exaggerate the risks inherent in any change. So we have to train ourselves to examine the risks and costs of the status quo first.
Another commitment that I would have liked to see more detail on is the last one around openness, transparency, and accountability by engaging with partners, the public, and the public service. So this is a major source of public frustration, and I believe we should be explaining how this government is going to do it differently. I believe we need to commit to share information as early and as freely as possible and to publicly admit when we make mistakes and communicate how we will learn from them and do better.
Now to the main priority areas, starting with housing, the emphasis in housing is on partnerships, including Indigenous, federal, and community governments, and by working to encourage private investment. I understand and appreciate that emphasis because the scale of housing needs in the NWT is vast, and the GNWT simply does not have the resources to be making billiondollar ribbon cutting announcements about new housing. So we have to be strategic and try to leverage federal and private investment. That being said, we need to be open about or come to terms with the fact that public housing is going to continue to fall squarely on the GNWT's shoulders. Indigenous governments are accessing significant federal funding for housing, but my understanding is they do not want to or intend to take on public housing. But I haven't seen this government articulate anywhere our vision when it comes to public housing, what we're actually committed to accomplish in public housing over this Assembly. How are we planning to maintain our current public housing assets, repair and improve the quality of existing housing plenty of which is currently boarded up and what is our plan to try to prevent vandalism and damage going forward?
On economic foundations, one of the big reasons I pushed us to include the word "foundations" with this priority, of course, was to highlight the importance of JK to 12 education and basic literacy. And, currently, these are entirely missing from the mandate and business plans.
Now, I understand that the district education authorities rightfully maintain a lot of control over education, but this government has an important role in setting goals and expectations. The last Assembly set a goal of increasing graduation rates, which was not successful. And I believe that that goal misses the point. I think we need to set clear goals around literacy and allocate resources inside and outside the formal education system to give us a chance of meeting the goals.
Another important foundation of the economy is energy, and the mandate talks about investments in green power generation and transmission. I just want to point out that often people associate green energy and reducing emissions only with electricity, but we need to remember that transportation and heating, including those associated with heavy industry like mining, are our biggest sources of GHG emissions and also carry high costs. So we need to think more broadly and strategically about our energy transition than just electricity.
In terms of health care, I support the ideas in this section and the emphasis on primary care. But I do think there's not enough recognition of the need for a new approach to retention of health care workers.
Now, we always hear the phrase recruitment and retention spoken in the same breath, but we're actually doing quite well in recruitment yet we're losing staff faster than we can hire them. Retention requires a significantly different strategy than recruitment. So I think we need to start separating them in our thinking.
With regard to addressing the effects of trauma, one thing that's not explicitly mentioned is the need to address the root causes of family violence and genderbased violence and support survivors and their families in breaking the cycle. We do have a significant amount of federal funding to do this work, but I don't want that work to be done in the shadows.
The mandate emphasizes that Indigenous governments will need to take the lead on culturally appropriate trauma treatment, mental wellness, and addictions programming. Now, I understand the value in this; I'm just not sure how well Yellowknife can see itself in the way this priority is worded in the mandate. Yellowknife, obviously, is where almost half of our population resides, including many people from small communities who are struggling the most with addictions and mental wellness. The work of serving these folks often falls on nonprofits in Yellowknife, but they are usually not eligible for the same sorts of federal funding opportunities as Indigenous governments. So it's not clear to me how they're supposed to take the lead on developing and delivering new programming when they can't even access basic sustainable funding to keep their doors open. Beyond capital or startup funding, the nonprofits in Yellowknife need ongoing operational support, support from medical professionals, outreach services. Outreach nurses and social workers usually work for the GNWT. So we need to see these kinds of partnerships reflected in the mandate and the business plans.
This also relates to the mandate item around public safety, which emphasizes the need for working together with law enforcement. So often it falls on law enforcement to deal with noncriminal social issues, but I think the RCMP themselves would be the first to tell you they should not be doing that, and their resources should be reserved for criminal issues.
Is there anybody else, any other Member that would like to speak? Seeing no more comments. Thank you, committee. Do you agree that Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And, yeah, I'm sorry, I was just waiting to see if some other Members oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I was just going to see if other Members wanted to speak up but in absence of them, I will definitely share some thoughts.
Yeah, I have a bit of prepared comments here and will try to go off the cuff a little bit also. So I'm going to do my best here to speak to the mandate specifically and not the business plans, because they are separate documents, we are looking at them separately, but at this point I do think it's difficult to separate the two because anything measurable is contained in the business plans and lack of measurable targets and tangible action was one of my main concerns with the draft mandate when it was first presented to us. And certainly I shared that sentiment in comments to my colleagues in caucus and also in a followup email.
I appreciate the government tabling the business plans publicly, and I'm hesitantly open to the idea to supporting the idea of putting measurables in the business plans if the plan is to make the documents public going forward, which it is as I see right now. We can discuss the level to which measurable goals have been sufficiently included in the business plans when we discuss those specifically.
For the mandate, I would say that for the average citizen and, indeed ourselves, the disadvantage with this new approach is that we have made figuring out exactly what the government is doing and when it plans to achieve it a much more difficult and convoluted task.
So the business plans are a 280page document. So currently, there isn't a place where a person can quickly look to the mandate and determine what the government is specifically working to achieve under each mandate statement or item. The mandate statements are quite broad, and I think could be criticized to be saying a lot of things the government is currently working on. So it's hard to say that this is particularly visionary.
I think that this is a gap which the government should work to address in its public communications and suggest it would help both the public and Members to better track and hold the government to account for mandate progress if we did have a place where we could access the mandate and the very specific measurable items that are associated with it. I realize that's going to be in the business plans but, again, it's a 280page document and we can't quickly go through those and sort of identify targets.
So on one hand, we have created much more focused priorities, which I was a strong advocate for and I'm glad we achieved, but the government has taken those and expanded upon them to the point where they are now attached to a document which is hundreds of pages long and, as I can personally attest, takes days to pour through in detail.
So the mandate itself. The mandate as tabled speaks to challenging status quo and driving positive change. When I look at the 20242025 Budget as proposed, I found myself questioning how much are we really challenging the status quo and, particularly, questioning the government's understanding of what the process of priority setting truly involves. I'll speak to that sentiment more in response to the budget itself.
To the mandate itself, I will say that for the most part, I agree with and appreciate the sentiments shared by the previous Speaker, the Member for Yellowknife North. I do see myself, particularly in the priorities that were set by caucus, by the 19 Members, I am pleased to see housing at the top, strong economic foundation, access to health care. Those are things that I specifically campaigned on and committed to residents to bring to the table as priorities and so I'm very happy to see those in there. So I think that we were focused in our priority setting, and I am pleased to see that those priorities are being spoken to throughout the business plan. So I do think the government has done its best to focus on the priorities when implementing the business plans. Again, I'll speak to those more in specific tomorrow.
So the difficulty with the mandate, of course, is the lack of measurability in it. And I think that it remains to be seen if the process of attaching mandate to business plans is going to be an effective way to track progress and hold the government to account. So I think that probably how I can most helpfully provide comment here is just to speak to each individual item and what it means to me, because I haven't had a chance to kind of speak to the mandate itself.
So housing. What did I mean when I brought housing forward as a priority?
To put it quite simply, what that meant to me is that we were going to be increasing housing stock available to residents in the territory, making it more affordable to get into housing in the territory and, in particular, also investing in operations and maintenance of housing in the territory, which we have fallen woefully behind upon. And we simply have not been funding O and M of housing at the level to which we need to over the past number of years, focusing more on capital projects. And so the difficulty with that, of course, is that housing stock is slowly decreasing in quality and needing repair and falling out of repair and having to be taken offline when what we need to be doing is kind of maintaining what we have and building more. So that's what I meant. And so we've said that we're increasing housing availability. Whether we have, as the Member for Yellowknife North mentioned, kind of a solid plan for doing that, I think we have not yet quite articulated what our longterm plan is and what we're really trying to achieve. So I'm hoping that we can get there with the business plans.
I am going to speak to the economy it's amazing how quickly we run out of time here. Speaking to the economy, I think the one that I want to speak to the most here is growing and enhancing the northern workforce by investing in skill development and attracting skilled workers to the NWT. I very much appreciate that this is the top item in economy. And I have more to say on this topic when we get to business plans and perhaps a reply to the Budget Address. But the bottom line, I'll say, is that the foundation of a strong economy is people, and the reason for building a strong economy is people. And so investing in people through housing, through education, through health, I think is how we build the foundation for a strong economy. And that's mostly what I meant when I was speaking to that.
I think that the other items that are in here are things that I contributed to and agree with also. I think I agree with the comments made by my previous colleague there on power infrastructure and just acknowledging that there's a little bit more to this than just green power generation and transmission.
Access to health care. I'm quite happy with what we've put in here. I think it's simple. I hope that it's achievable. And certainly what I was saying during the election, and what I brought forward as a priority, is focusing on access to primary care in the NWT. And that is at the top of the list here. So I am pleased to see that.
As for the next ones, addressing the effects of trauma, emergency management, I think I am pleased with what's in there. Again, whether we can be measurable in what we're doing, I have some comments specific to emergency management that I think I'll save for a statement because they're quite specific, and I'm quickly running out of time.
On public safety, on this item I definitely asked some questions during development of the mandate that I put to Cabinet and want to speak to those a little bit and just want to note that there is a strong connection between public safety and addressing and the items that we have in addressing the effects of trauma and access to health care that I think I would like to have seen us create some better connections between. And that is just to say, quite simply, most of the social problems that we are facing in the Northwest Territories are not problems that we can police our way out of. And scientifically, and behind research behind these topics has shown time and time again that you can't police your way out of social issues. The way out of social issues is poverty reduction, treating addictions, mental health, wellness, ensuring that there's that everybody has equal ability to participate in the economy. That's what truly helps societies get over social ills. It's not something that you can just take people and put them in jail and expect that the problems are going to go away.
So I've got 20 seconds left. I had a bit of a comment that I wanted to make but I guess I'll have to include that in either tomorrow's or in a reply to the Budget Address. So I'll leave my comments at that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Mr. Testart.
Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I was just reminding colleagues that you may speak twice to an item if the chair allows. But once my time is sorted out on the clock, I will begin.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, who likes ice cream? I think you'll find most people do. It takes a real curmudgeonly character to not enjoy a sweet treat. And much like that sentiment with this mandate, there's a lot to like in here. It's an aspirational document that speaks to how the government is going to take the priorities of this Assembly seriously and deliver on them. What it's short on is detail and tangible outcomes, and that is largely my issue with this document. I look to the business plans, which the previous Speaker, my friend from Frame Lake, spoke to is 280 pages. And within those pages, you will find concrete and tangible outcomes. There are some spending targets and commitments identified. There are timelines for legislation. There are numbers of houses to be built, those kind of details. Without that, this document remains comfortably in the stratosphere of an aspirational document, which is fine to have. I think these kind of documents are important, this kind of language is important, and to remain hopeful and collaborative is important as well. But is it useful as a priority setting document? I don't think so. I think it's pretty clear we have we worked collaboratively to develop those priorities, and what we want to see is tangible outcomes to make them a reality so we can go back to our constituents and say this is what this government did. If I go back to someone now and say, you know, we've increased investment certainty and create opportunities for the private sector by streamlining administrative processes and ensuring regulatory systems and decisionmaking are consistent, efficient, and predictable, that's a nice principle to have, but how do we do that? What is the what? You know, that's the objective; how are we going to get there? And we still don't and the answer is in those business plans, and that's what requires more scrutiny, I think, from this House to really see if we're achieving these things. And I guess when we speak to process, because process is important to any government and any governing institution and certainly legislative institution as well, we have to I have to ask, is this the best process for this Assembly? If this isn't a really useful accountability tool, if it's not a useful tool for setting mandates, because you can already we're already setting mandates through business plans and mandate letters, then what is it really? And I think we could have skipped this step and gone straight into the business plans or straight into the mandate letters. And I'm just concerned that if we continue on this path, you know, we have this commitment to take more risks, we're going to see a government that creates a risk secretariat that's going to evaluate risks and give the government policy guidance on what risks to take and what risks not to take, and we're going to establish a new process for that. We need to just govern. We need to just give, you know, a clear Budget Address that has these priorities in it that shows how we're going to invest in them, and then, you know, ask Members to support it. And yeah, so I just wish we would be a little less cautious in even how we go about the business here. It's taken us a long time to get to this point and, you know, we're still waiting to pass our first real budget that's going to have tangible outcomes. And I don't think everyone's happy with that budget. So it's going to take negotiation. It's going to take back and forth. I think we're slow on that process as well. And, you know, the clock is counting down, not just on my time but on our time in this Assembly as well. So I want to see us succeed. I want to see us work together to succeed. But I also want to make sure we're maximizing our time effectively. And I think sometimes we get bogged down in process like this when we could just be moving forward with something more concrete and tangible.
So that being said, I support everything that's in here a hundred percent but I do want to see the how, the why, the what, how we're going to achieve these things, and that for me, this document leaves more questions than answers. So I look forward to tomorrow's review of business plans and we'll have more to say about that. But until then, I think I've said everything that needs to be said from my perspective on this document. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Is there any other Member that would like to speak? Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Premier and Cabinet, for the mandate, issuing the mandate, tabling the mandate. I appreciate the work that's been done on it. I concur with some of what's been said with my colleagues in that, you know, it's great to have the mandate, I support the mandate, it is a good document, it's a highlevel document, but as we know where the rubber hits the road will be in the business plans. And that's where we as we said, we have things that are deliverable and measurable and things we can look to do to what we need to do to get our work done. And, you know, I get it, like everyone gets it. There's only so much budget to go around. There's only so many things we can do and, you know, we all there's many things in there that we know we need to get done, and I appreciate that we're looking at that over four years. I appreciate that the Premier has his 50year plan as well which, you know, I know we want to look to where we have to get in the future.
You know, having said that, I mean, the government I mean, to set that path to prosperity, I guess, we need to continue to look outside the box. We need to continue to look at different solutions. I like that in there you see a lot of working with Indigenous governments, with NGOs, and municipal governments. I think it's so important, as I've said previously to, you know, to look at redundancies and where we're spending our money and where money can be spent otherwise. Look at, you know, opportunities to access funding that maybe we would not have been able to access, you know, without that. So I think that's also very important and that we continue that. We sat around as 19 of us before we sat in this House, and we talked about those things. We met for two days with the Indigenous governments, and we talked about those things, about how we can look at redundancies and how we can think outside the box. You know, so I think it's and I've stated that many times.
I've spoken many times about our wholeofcommunity approach. Well, I think that also, you know, translates in the wholeofgovernment approach, not only us working together as a consensus government and doing what we need to do and working with other governments as well within our territory. You know, and we'll touch on this in the business plans a little more tomorrow but looking at the economy, we need revenue, we need to grow. You know, we need to look, again, outside the box, ways we can grow. And, you know, one of my colleagues talked about people. It's very important, about recruitment, about getting people that getting people to work in the territory and getting people that are working outside the territory potentially back in the territory. And I think that's so very important for us. And not just for you know, people talk about the transfer payments but for the other things, the income tax, the work that you know, the work that people do, the rent they pay, the groceries they buy, the hockey coaches they provide, those things are all important to us as a territory as well.
As I said previously sorry, I just lost my thought. One second. Yes, that wholeofcommunity approach.
Anyway, Madam Chair, when we do get to the business plans tomorrow, we'll be able to discuss some more of that and we'll look at, again, talking about the economy. You know, we don't touch on things that are happening in the territory. We need to focus on, things that what's happening in my region where the Inuvialuit are leading the charge on developing natural gas up there. And as we know, you know, we have the third largest reserves of natural gas in the world and, you know, we rarely that's kind of something we hardly hear spoke about here. We talk about the mining industry, which is super important to us, but there's also other industries full of potential here. The world still needs natural gas, you know, we still need that product yet for a while so it's important, I think, that we look at that. We look at the Inuvik satellite station in Inuvik and the things that are going on there, things like that, outside the box, thinking that can provide some of that revenue for our government.
So, yeah, I think I will leave it at that. Again, thank you. As my colleague from Range Lake has said, I support this document. I appreciate the document, but much work to be done, and I look forward to going through the business plans. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Any other Members? Seeing no more Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I was trying to decide if I wanted to speak to the mandate or not. I mean, you heard largely what my colleagues had said and I mean, just working backwards, I mean, it's really tough to disagree with this. I mean, because the statements are so high high level. You know, I often feel that the public wants more and expects more, and this is the fault of consensus government, which is we can't be specific. And the only reason we can't be specific is because it's us. We choose to be that way.
If I was in charge of a mandate by myself or was able to sort of, like, pry my Members colleagues to agree, I mean, we'd say simply, as I said earlier today in my statement, which is, you know, we would mandate a hundred new homes for social housing. You know, and we'd work towards that goal. We would commit the forces, like a team, an army, to meet these challenges. We'd say, for example, today we're going to we're going to work to get 150 kilometers of the Mackenzie Valley Highway done by the end of this term. And to me, those are the types of things that the public's looking for.
I mean, if I was to quote President George Bush, I mean, I'd say mission accomplished with this little chuckle, because the mandate itself looks like it's largely completed already. And the problem is the Cabinet's hearing this as a criticism, but it's not a criticism. The problem is these things are written as so wide. I mean, you know, better streamlined admin process, engage public, I mean we do that every day now. You know, sometimes better, sometimes worse. But in all fairness, we do this, you know, open transparent government. I mean, we try those things. We do those things. I mean, none of this is new. That's the problem. I mean, every government, including the ones, the 21st Assembly, etcetera, and on and on and on, will be struggling with the same phrases. How do we break free from the static position of you know, of the static truth of mandates, which is they're just they're statements that, you know, nothing is groundbreaking. I mean, I I'm not advocating for party politics but, you know, when a government comes into force, I mean, it says I'm going to make highways, or I'm going to set up a bottle depot in every community, or in the sense of recycling. And or we're going to build more houses. And this is how many we're going to build. And that's the problem with this process, is we don't you know, we're almost afraid of our shadow to make those commitments. And I don't know why that it continues to be this way. I mean, I can keep advocating for more, be specific, and I will will continue to advocate. But it's an unfortunate symptom of the way we do work. I mean, I believe in empowering the Premier to lead the Cabinet, but we don't do it that way. I believe, and they should be able to make decisions, but yet we we tie ourselves up into these ball of yarns that are fought over by kittens so they're quite a mess, unable to follow a line of decisionmaking and process and getting free. I mean, it's such a tangled web of confusion sometimes. And what do we do? We further hit ourselves with more policy and process.
I mean, the general public, I find in my experience, you know, wanted to hear things like we're going to build two more addiction centres by the end of this term. Like, I'm serious. That specific. You know, they would like to hear that. And I know we can't do everything for everybody, but that's the reality of government, which is you try your best, but at least try to try.
I don't think my point on another 150 kilometers of Mackenzie Valley being built you know, if we only did 149, I don't think people would be angry with us. I think they would be inspired by our blaze and trail of call to action, you know. I mean, when I hear deliver equitable access to sustainable primary health care, I mean that is every day. I mean, I can't imagine someone not attempting to deliver equitable access to sustainable primary care. I mean, it's just it's hard to imagine that that isn't the case. And it's frustrating because, like I say, when I talk to people, they want to hear specifics. They want to hear that there is a call to action and one that they can measure us every one of us against. And for better or for worse, it at least helps inspires us. Because, I mean, if we said we were going to build another hundred public housing units to help people and, you know, that would be an easy way to rally behind because, I mean, we'd be looking to the left of us and saying how do we help and get this darn thing done, and we'd be looking to the right and say how do we get those things done, and, you know, you do your part because we're all going to do it. But now it's just, well, we're going to work together. That's the mandate. And that's really what it says.
I mean, the last two speakers are right. I mean, of course they support this. I mean, who doesn't support working on addressing the effects of trauma. But, you know as an example, or emergency management. Who doesn't support any of these things? I mean, it's impossible not to support them. But, again, Madam Chairperson, you know, the challenge, like I say, is that I think it's it largely would be it shouldn't be taken personal, and it's not intended to be personal, but, I mean, the public really is frustrated by these challenges, which is what does it really say? And what does it really mean? And what does it really deliver? And for me to go back to them or speak to them at my constituency meeting which, by the way, is at 6:30 tonight for all those listening, at Javaroma until 8:30. And I mean, the reality is they want to know and be able to sink their teeth into something. And to that, I see the ultimate frustration of, you know, what are politicians really saying, what are they accomplishing, what are they doing? I have nothing to measure them by. And then when it comes polling day, you know, they just they're rating you on your personality basically as opposed to the government. Or they're mad at the government and blaming Regular Members, which is often I've seen the case. The government doing this, and it must be your fault. But if you read this, I mean, we've already done it, I mean
So Madam Chair, yes, I support the public safety initiative statements. I support all the statements. I can run through them all but I don't think I'll do that. So I just say I support them all. I mean, it's hard not to. And that's the frustration about the mandate, is that we've waited over six months to see statements that don't have specifics. And I know if I had my way, like I say, I mean, the government would pick five or six areas, target them very precisely, and show the public we're going to rise to the challenge and if we don't rise, we're darn we're going to darnedest do our best. And to that, I suspect every one of us in this room will be rewarded with either the big cheers or good support, at least emotionally, with our communities for having the best interests their best interests in our hearts. And that really in some ways is a lot of the work we do here.
So I am going to say that's all I have to say right now. But, of course, I reserve my right to reflect differently in a different direction as I spur as the moment spurs or as other Members inspire. So thank you, Madam Chairperson. And good luck on measuring these things. Cheers.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, when Premier made his speech at the beginning, you know, balance the budget and to build good working relationship with Indigenous government, settling outstanding land claims, etcetera, I liked that. You know, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that, you know, was pleased with that statement. There's a lot of other First Nations that didn't settle their land claims were also pleased as well, you know. So which is a good start. I like that. You know, but this mandate here, there's nine pages, and they are right, it is very vague. You know, here, access to health care, deliver equitable access to sustainable primary care in all NWT communities, not in all you know, like, I mean, there are going to be some communities like, how would you accommodate for a community like Wekweeti, you know? So not every one of them. It's there's not going we're not going to have this equitable access, you know. So it's just that how they're going to do this is one of the things that kind of missing in the mandate. But I know it's in the business plan, but it's very long. And, you know, something like this, where the mandate, like, nine pages, but it's just that it would have been nice if you know, if it was more explanation and details of how they're going to do it. So I have no issues, it's just that it's I know this turnaround, this government is doing something different, which we didn't have this mandate, we didn't have this business plan, but we had the main estimate. So main estimate, that's where we ask all those questions. But I guess now that, you know, tomorrow it's tomorrow we're going to be discussing that tomorrow and we'll look into it more.
But even with the housing, you know, like, I mean, to to end homelessness, especially in small communities in larger centre, yes, there's more of our people are moving to larger centre because to have a better life. We can have that in small communities if we were if we had access to more program and services if we had more housing, you know, because there's not too many people in the small communities where homelessness should not be an issue. And it doesn't say that in here too, you know, that they talk about the homelessness, but it's mostly in regional centre, not in small communities. So I do have issues with that.
And mental health services, you know, like, we do have lots of issues there.
And public safety, it talked about here, law enforcement, you know. In small communities, like Gameti, they don't have RCMP. They've been asking for to ensure public safety, they do need an RCMP or law enforcement, any kind of or law enforcement, some form of law enforcement in that community, and Wekweeti too as well. It's not just them, but there are other communities that are lacking that services. So it would have been nice how, you know, like, they're going to be focusing on crime prevention.
In small communities, there's lots of issues. There's lots of we lack a lot of recreation activities. There's not much to do for our young people. So all they do is just you know, the only activities that most of these community have is the school activities. There's nothing outside of school in some of the communities. So we do need more, and it would have been nice if that was identified in here too as well, you know, because and lately, the crime has been happening due to drug related. So it's just that I do like what I see here, but it's just that it would have been nice if it was explained more in detail.
I don't want to talk down the clock, but I think I'm sure there are other Members here that want to talk as well. But I do like what the Premier you know, the Premier said in his statement before that, you know, Indigenous government, Indigenous people, having good relation good working relationship with them is more important for us, especially from the small communities. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.
Thank you, Member of Monfwi. Premier.
Thank you. And thank you, everyone, for the comments; I do appreciate it. I know that this is a departure from previous mandates of this government and of other mandates that you would see in a system where there's a political party who can bring together their apparatus, come up with a plan, and lay that out on day one.
The reason that this mandate is sparse in terms of actual deliverables is because I've seen two mandates prior to this government. I've been involved with the Assembly for two previous terms, and each of those mandates had hundreds I think the first one had hundreds, the second one had maybe 170, commitments in there, and they were specific commitments. And I did not find that to be a great way to I guess to govern. I didn't find that to be the most useful document. As a Regular Member, I rarely ever referred to that mandate. If there were issues in my constituency, I would speak with businesses or constituents and, over time, I would determine whether or not things had gotten better by how people interacted with the system. If people's problems were never solved, then I knew things weren't getting better. You can really get a sense of how things are operating and how the government is doing just through the daytoday business of being an MLA. So I wasn't too concerned about deliverables in here or sorry, measurements in here. But as the Members point out, it is in the mandate or in the business plans.
In terms of, you know, these areas being broad, yes, some of them are very broad. So it was mentioned the health care commitment to deliver equitable access to suitable primary health care. And that's one of only four commitments under that area. And so what that does, to me, it says if you're going to bring forward something about health care, you want to you bring forward a program or an ask, it better be focused on ensuring equitable access to primary health care. So it's a way to filter out some of the other things that the government does that perhaps don't focus on the priorities of the Assembly.
Similarly, there's comments in there about streamlining administrative processes. So if a program is coming forward, it better have streamlined administrative processes. If there's an initiative, it better be reducing a regulatory burden.
So as much as what we're going to do, this is a signal to the government of what we're not going to do. We're not going to do the same things. We're going to bring forward initiatives that are in line with this mandate. And so it is different. I didn't want to do the same thing. I didn't want to tie this government to initiatives that were created within the first month or two after the priorities were developed because it was only three months ago that the priorities of the Assembly were set. So I know we've been here six months, but it hasn't been six months that we've had the priorities to develop this mandate.
So I won't say much more, but I do look forward to working with the Members and Cabinet and Indigenous government partners, as was pointed out, to really flesh out what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. And we're going to do it by working together. Thank you.
Thank you, Premier. Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do make a daily goal for myself of not going other my time limit, and I failed once again. Maybe tomorrow. I just had a few sentences left.
So I was just going to say that I appreciate the renewed emphasis under addressing the effects of trauma. On on the land healing and wellness supports and aftercare support, but there are still some significant gaps in the spectrum of mental health and addictions supports that I think we need to talk more about, including harm reduction and stabilization, including managed alcohol programs, and also medically supported detox facilities, which there's not nearly enough a capacity for in this territory.
And just to conclude, when we embarked on this process of setting priorities, I, like many others, wanted to see a strategic plan type document with measurable and outcome-oriented goals. Now, we didn't get there with the priorities or with the mandate, and you could argue that a strategic plan was not ever going to be part of these documents. It turns out that there are many stages along the way, which is fine, as long as it all nests together and leads us ultimately to that strategic plan. Unfortunately, so far I see a major disconnect between this mandate and the business plan but I'll speak more to that tomorrow. So thank you, Madam Chair, for letting me finish my statement.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Frame Lake, Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair, for indulging a second round. And I just wanted to quickly kind of provide my closing comments here. So just a couple more points.
I mean, as I spoke to earlier, I appreciated Cabinet kind of listening to our comments, and I certainly saw mine reflected in the updated mandate document, so I appreciate them listening. And I wanted to highlight just a few things.
One is the statement on page 2 about strengthening collaborations between departments. It goes on to talk about fostering a sense of purpose and wellbeing and empowering, performance, and excellence and innovation in our staff. There's another bullet point, on page 3, empowering the public service by ensuring they are provided the flexibility to deliver programs and honouring the GNWT's commitments to openness, transparency, and accountability. So those statements, I just wanted to highlight those because I wanted to note that some of those things, I think, some people would say are a pretty monumental shift in how the GNWT does business. And that is something that I was advocating for. I noted in my comments on the mandate that I wanted to see us speak to let's see here.
I was talking about things like implementing results-based management systems, program measure measurement, a reference to changing management structure and practice to better facilitate employee empowerment and engagement. So I was hoping to see specifics like that. And also a commitment to improving workplace morale and employee satisfaction. I would note, unfortunately, that workplace morale and employee satisfaction has been noted to be fairly low in recent surveys of staff. So I just wanted to point out these statements and say that they're very nice to see and hear, and it remains to be seen that we are going to remain committed to these and ensure that we actually implement them with policies, with changes to how things are down, with shifts in the way management is done at the GNWT. And I think those, as I said, would be quite monumental shifts, and I think they'd be very appreciated by a lot of people, including myself, because I think these shifts are one of the keys to ensuring that these mandate commitments actually get implemented.
So I'm just going to share some closing comments that I shared with Cabinet when we were in caucus. I wanted to make the comments publicly also.
Let's be bold. Let's take risks. I think we all know that we're facing major challenges during the term of this Assembly and that status quo is not acceptable, nor will it get us where we need to go. And so I want to encourage Cabinet to take those risks. You've spoken to it in the mandate, and I want to see you do it on the ground.
With regard to the relationship between Regular Members and Cabinet, I think that we often see the differences between our two sides, but the distinction is much less significant for the public who put us in here. I think people judge our success as an Assembly based on the successes and operations of the government. So your success is our success. And I want us to be working together, like you've said, to achieve that.
I also want to speak to kind of just the specific work of MLAs. I want as much as possible our committee projects to align with the mandate and help investigate and make recommendations as to how we can improve our ability to achieve it. So that's my commitment back to Cabinet, is that when working on the Regular MLA side, we'll be scoping out our projects and doing projects that relate to either mandate or business plan items, things that either we have expertise in or we think need an extra lens on to ensure that we are actually making good on some of these commitments, because this is a very ambitious list of tasks and we have a very short period of time to achieve them.
What I want to see from Cabinet is strong leadership to ensure that the bureaucracy is implementing what we're talking about in this room on the ground, particularly with regards to working collaboratively, helping people, ensuring that people perceive the change we're talking about here in their communities and in their interactions with the government.
So that's pretty much that's pretty much it from me is and when I speak to strong leadership, what I mean is are we seeing change that we're talking about here actually implemented. And so some of you will notice that I haven't been providing questions ahead of time as much as I was in the first session, and that's I was saying to one of the Ministers earlier that one of the reasons for that is I want to know what the Ministers are bringing to the table in terms of leadership to these departments. And so I do want to hear the Minister's voice, not just the department's voice when we're asking questions. And so having taken five minutes already, I think I'll leave my comments at that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Seeing no more comments, thank you, committee. Do you agree that you have concluded consideration of Tabled Document 6720(1)?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We have concluded consideration of Tabled Document 6720(1). Member for Inuvik Boot Lake.
