Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Premier. I’m following up from my Member’s statement when I talked about the need for the establishment of an ombudsman office.
I want to say I appreciate the response from the government to the motion that was passed in June, but I do wish that it had been a little more definitive. The response to the motion talks about a review being underway, and I also appreciate that the government is doing due diligence in looking into things, but I hope they are looking at not only maybe adding to what we have already, I hope they’re looking at collapsing a few things.
So I’d like to know from the Premier whether or not there’s any consideration by the government, as they do this review, to collapse some of the current appeal boards and tribunals and bring it under one office, hopefully an ombudsman office. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all with regard to the ombudsman office, we’re reviewing the legislative base rights as well as all of the different avenues there are currently for which people that have issues can have them addressed, and we will take what we find and we will see what is the best way forward we would go without reinventing the wheel. If we take that approach, it depends what kind of wheel we’re going to use as some of the wheels cost $900,000 and other wheels cost $10 million. So we would certainly look at finding out what we think has to be done, and if it means perhaps we’d also look at what existing programs we have that could be rolled in. Of course, we would bring it forward to committee or Caucus to seek their input as well. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier for those remarks. I guess I would like to advise the Premier that there’s one other wheel that he forgot to mention, and that’s the Yukon’s wheel and it’s only $600,000. So I don’t think we’re going to go anywhere near $10 million.
I mentioned gaps in my statement. There certainly are gaps in what we currently have, and specifically I’d like to mention a gap I believe exists for residents who encounter a problem with a government staff person. So I’d like to know from the Minister what currently exists for clients of GNWT services – and that would be our residents in most cases, sometimes an NGO – for them to lay complaints about service that they have received from staff, or in regard to staff actions or ethics. Thank you.
I guess those are the kinds of areas where we’re doing further analysis. I think there’s a number of avenues. I think the average citizen, if they’ve got a complaint, they usually phone their MLA or they’ll phone the Minister in charge or they’ll contact the Premier’s office. I guess there are other avenues like legal recourse and so on. So there’s a number of different avenues and I guess those are the kinds of things that we will be doing the analysis on, in addition to all of the best practices that we’ll be reviewing. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier. I appreciate that the government is going to do a full examination. I would hope that’s what we would do. The Premier mentioned that people can talk to their MLA, they can talk to a Minister, they can go to court. Court is not an option. In the minds of most people it’s not financially feasible for them. I think going to your Member of the Legislative Assembly takes out any element of fairness or impartiality in many cases. I appreciate they need to be considered, but I hope they are looked at with an un-jaundiced eye.
I would like to ask the Premier – there is no indication in the response to the motion when the government review would be done – if I could get an answer to that.
I guess within the context of the 120 days that we are required to respond, that didn’t get us enough time to respond. I fully expect that within six months we should be able to respond.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks, Mr. Premier. My last question then goes to if we have a review that’s done in the next six months or so – and I think that’s a reasonable time frame – I’d like to know from the Premier if it’s feasible that we could expect the establishment of an ombudsman office within the life of this 17th Assembly.
I guess that will be based on some decision points that we will have to come to. I guess to me the most obvious one will be if we see fit to proceed with establishing an ombudsman office, would it be established as part of the Legislative Assembly or would it be an officer of the Legislative Assembly? If we make it as part of the government, that would be defeating some of the objectives that have been described in why we need an ombudsman office. I see some decision points that would have to be made. Also, if at $600,000, if that’s what Yukon is, and assuming we follow the Yukon model, where would the money come from? We would have to make that decision as well. Conceivably it’s doable before the end of the 17th Assembly, but there will be some decisions that have to be made.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
