Mr. Speaker, I think that the Premier has now pretty well heard consistently from most of the Members of this House that there’s some unhappiness over here about the consultation and the communication since the 16th Assembly took office. Now, I don’t want to say that this is a universal problem. I mean, certainly some Cabinet Ministers we’ve been working with have been doing a great job. They get back to us. They communicate.
But how we communicate and work together as Cabinet and committees and in that structured, formal framework that we work within.... Collectively, there has been something lacking here. So I hope that the Premier is starting to get that message and won’t deny it.
Example: Maximizing Opportunities, Managing This Land, Reducing the Cost of Living and Refocusing Government. Why can those committees, chaired by different Cabinet Ministers, not include, as has been requested, representation from Regular Members on this side of the House?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of Cabinet committees that are established that look at budgetary issues, legislation, policy. There is no joint committee process. There are a number of areas we’ve worked with; for example, Members on the climate change piece have put that together. There has been the Mackenzie Gas Project joint committee. So those things we can be looking at to salvage.
There are some areas where, as we’re getting underway with the new way of doing our budgeting process, those strategic initiatives fit at this time. I’ve said to Members already that once we have that up and going, we’ll be sitting down with Members on a more regular basis at some point to go through the items before they become even a draft main document. But that will take commitment from Members to agree to sit down and have those discussions and meetings about timing and how we go through those initiatives.
There has been a lot of emphasis put on changing the way we do business. The reason why I referenced those four committees is because they are strategic initiative committees that are supposed to take the strategic priorities of this government that we collectively agreed upon. These were formed after that to try and bring focus to the various Cabinet committees. We don’t want to sit on every Cabinet committee, but some we have requested, and we have met with no favourable response, no agreement. It is an interesting dynamic.
When I was in my Member’s statement referring to the fact that maybe Cabinet is a contradiction in consensus government, the Premier seemed to have a bit of a scoffing reaction to that. I suggested committees of oversight, like they have at municipal councils. Tell me why that would be such a foreign thought.
Committees of oversight do exist. The Standing Committees on Social Programs, Economic Development and Infrastructure and of Priorities and Planning are looking at what the government is doing and keeping us accountable. Let’s also remember the fact that it wasn’t that long ago in the history of the Government of the Northwest Territories when Ministers of this government went down to Ottawa and sat at those tables. In fact, we didn’t sit at the tables; we sat in the hallway. Let’s be realistic. If we’re going to talk about being a grand municipal council instead of a territorial government, we’ll get even less attention at the national table. So when we talk about credibility of this government and the views of this government, we have to keep that in mind and how we structure ourselves.
I believe there needs to be a process established over the life of this government to make some changes in the future of government operations, and maybe one of them is actually calling into question consensus government. I’ve said that I’m consensus to the core in how we do business, and I tried to operate in that. Although there have been a few Members who’ve said they’ve been walking in the blind with what our plans are, I would dispute that fact, and I can show and I’m prepared to get the times we’ve sat down with committees. We’ve put initiatives on the table, we’ve waited for response, and we’ve made some changes — the same process we’ve used in the past. I want to incorporate and get more dialogue between committees through these initiatives. I’m looking forward to that piece of it.
The Premier refers to getting a seat at those FPT tables. I would like to suggest that all that money that is spent to take Ministers, deputy ministers, officials down to all those FPT meetings, which they run up and down the country going to, is of limited benefit to this government. We’ve got huge problems and issues that we have to work out right here at home. Maybe Ministers would have more time to pay attention to what’s going on in the Northwest Territories if they weren’t running off to every city in the country, getting together with FPT Ministers. I would suggest that they are of limited value. You can read the communiqué that comes out at the end. You could probably just bring it home, and that would be good enough.
We are all equally elected Members of this Assembly. When we get here, we expect to have effective and meaningful input. I would like to refute the Premier’s insinuation that any offer that’s been made to this side of the House has not been fully received and accepted and participated in. The prime example for me is....
Do you have a question, Mrs. Groenewegen?
Yes. I’d like to ask the Premier: going forward, what areas or avenues does he see available to him to set the example as the Premier of this government to provide more opportunity for a government of inclusion?
The fact is that we are trying to go down that path. I’ve offered to Members a different approach to take to the budgeting exercise. As I said yesterday, I was told to get the budget done; be ready for May–June. We’ve done that. I’ve said to Members that would put us back into the same old way of doing business as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’re in that, and that process has not changed. I would like to see a change going forward. As I proposed to Members, when we do these strategic initiative committees, the lead chairs and deputies would be going to committee on a more regular basis to help get their information for proposals as we begin to draft it.
The typical process would be that letters go out to the departments in June. Departments start doing that exercise. Members see the draft of this plan in September. Then they make remarks, and we make some adjustments. We want to change that process.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Third supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Premier didn’t have time to put together a budget that was going to be palatable, that was going to be reasonable, then we should have gone with the status quo. What we’ve ended up with is something not very acceptable. I know we asked for a compressed process. We expected better than this. We didn’t get it.
Would the Premier agree to return to an interim status quo budget until such time as we can come together and not take these very, very drastic measures that are proposed in this budget?
Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
