Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I I'm going to try and come at this from a slightly different angle just so we're not belabouring the point too badly on extended health benefits. But I wanted to ask specifically about the northern market basket measure and the switch to using this as kind of a determined the ceiling under which people would be covered or would have to kind of cover some of the costs themselves, increasing on a sliding scale from there. So I'd just like to hear from the department the appropriateness of using the basket measure. I know that the NWT has its own that it's kind of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't hear an explicit commitment to sit down with the boards. I would encourage the Minister that simply sitting down and having a discussion is all I'm asking for at this point.

Mr. Speaker, does the Minister have a response to the board's letter to share with the House today recognizing the letter did just come in, but I just wanted to ask the question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the previous sitting of this Assembly, I spoke to the problem of lack of clarity in the NWT waters regulations and the issues this problem is causing in our regulatory system. I spoke to arguments which had been made during a review of this issue which noted that amendments to the regs could help to alleviate some longstanding issues with relation to predictability, expediency, and fairness in the system.

On February 28th, I questioned the Minister on this, and he suggested these issues could be solved through interpretation of the regulations as opposed...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, you know, I think we've got a big budget to get through here. I'm not going to belabour this point. I do appreciate the Minister acknowledging the problem. I do want to see the department, you know, actively working on finding solutions, trying things. You know, we've talked a lot in the business plan about taking risks, breaking status quo. You know, don't be afraid to try things. And if it's not working, try something else. I can just commit to continuing to keep the pressure on as long as I'm hearing from constituents about these ongoing issues.

Mr. Chair...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'll keep my comments relatively minimal but I just had a few things to say that I felt were did fall better under general comments than anywhere else. And so I just wanted to say a few things.

Aside from the need for some specific measurables, which I've been speaking to kind of over and over again when it comes to business plans and, you know, we covered with the Premier in the previous department, but I do want to see us looking and shifting towards outcomeoriented targets in any of the business plans, and I apply that to health also. But I will say that I think...

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. My next question is on page 208 of the business plan. There's definitely a lot of comments about this in opening comments from Members. There's a plan to kind of bring forward a new territorial crime unit within the RCMP Gdivision to disrupt illicit drug supply. And so, yeah, my question isn't so much how do I put this? So I guess bottom line is what I'm asking is what evidence has the department used to inform the approach of kind of increasing policing services in response to this? And, you know, I would just note that there was some comments earlier that not...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And yeah, just in response to that I would just say, I mean, I mentioned it already, but I think something along the lines of reduced recidivism rates or success rates, let's track the outcome that we're searching for, maybe set a goal, and that can be a better target than simply stating that we're going to deliver high quality programming. I think that's kind of a baseline expectation. So that's my comments on this item. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm certainly happy to hear that from the Minister. Thank you to the Minister for the answer. I am happy to hear that the Minister and Cabinet are carefully considering the recommendations.

Mr. Speaker, is the Minister able to give us a timeline for when we can expect a response to the recommendations brought forward?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke to a letter sent by the land and water boards to the Ministers of ECE and the federal minister. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister open to coming to the table to meet with the boards as they have requested? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I made some comments in my opening comments about the various kind of  the sort of crisis that is being faced at NTHSSA, and I think I don't need to repeat those comments but was hoping to get a response back from the Minister and the department on ideas they are bringing forward to address these kind of issues.