R.J. Simpson

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe the review was happening regardless. We have our regular reviews. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As with any initiative, I expect that the relevant department will undertake a thorough review and reach out to experts as needed. I just want to reassure everyone that the Northwest Territories has no shortage of lawyers. I think we have four times the number of lawyers per capita compared to the rest of Canada. There's plenty of legal advice out there for the taking. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So it's you know, in the last government the mandate commitments were to settle land claims. Well, that's just what we're supposed to be doing. And so the way to do that is look at the negotiations, figure out what the issues are, figure out where the GNWT perhaps needs to change its position or align itself with an Indigenous government to work together to help change Canada's position, and then make those changes in the negotiating mandates. And that may be uncomfortable. That may be a departure from the way thing have been done in the past. But we need to push the...

Thank you. I believe it's in the procurement process. So we don't necessarily put the budget out before it has been approved. We want to make sure that the contractors are not bidding to the budget. They're bidding to the project. But the project itself is to create a website that is essentially a one window to the Government of the Northwest Territories. Right now, we have a number of different websites. We have a number of and the platform that's being used is actually quite old and not robust enough for today's modern internet. So just like physical infrastructure needs to be replaced...

Thank you. I'd like to hand it to Mr. Bancroft.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the children's lawyer provided great value, of course. That position is now vacant. But the person who was in there did a lot of work and it's very appreciated, those efforts. The children's lawyer would meet regularly with the panel of children's lawyers. So there's the Office of the Children's Lawyer, and they essentially oversee a panel of lawyers in various places in the territory, I believe one is also in Edmonton, and they assign cases to those panel lawyers. They would also provide some professional development opportunities, do research, keep up to date on...

Yes, thank you. So the Arctic and Northern Policy Framework, it's actually a federal document. We think it's a good document. We just need some implementation from the federal government. There are pieces here and there, but we really want to see them invest in the spirit of that document. Perhaps I can get the deputy minister to speak some more on this. Thank you.

Thank you for that, those comments. You know, comms, there's never enough communications, there's never enough information out there, and even when it's out there, people can't find it. So this is a it's been a nowin situation I found in my time here. There were discussions about centralizing in the last government. As the Minister of a department, a line department as they're called, I was not supportive of that given that there's the bread and butter communications that departments have to do. And, you know, I was a student when I was first elected and so I know that ECE did a lot of...

Thank you. So that's a pretty big question. The puck has dropped so I will try and keep things short. But there are when we talk about crime and crime reduction, and I always say, you know, enforcement is just one part of it, and the department is responsible for enforcement but also looking at other ways to address those issues. So one program that has been running a few years, although, you know, interrupted with many of the events we have seen as a territory, is the Community Safety Officer Program. So that's one where it is not an enforcement unit. It is community members who work with...