Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier and they are related to a Member’s statement I made last week about a process convention that was agreed to by Caucus in Fort Smith and reconfirmed later at Blachford Lake, I think.
I don’t think it would be any surprise to any of the Members on Cabinet or on this side, we have had some communication problems in this building. As a result of those communication problems, we ended up being faced with a motion of non-confidence against all the Ministers. As a result of that, we got together as a Caucus and we talked about some of the communication challenges that we had. We came up with some process conventions that allow us or place procedures on how we are going to work together. I believe these process conventions are valuable.
I am curious if the Premier could tell me, is Cabinet still committed to these process conventions that we agreed to, specifically the process convention on the Standing Committee review of proposed policy initiatives and implementation plans. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have, in fact, held by our conventions that we have put in place, the conventions when this policy was first put into the system in the 15th Assembly. Since the 16th Assembly and our initiatives -- and I must say I thank the Member for being kind, because when I came up to that vote, there was a little more to it than just communications and we all know that. The other area of the work and the policy since coming together as Members and renewing our relationship and working together, we hold to that. We continue to work with that. In fact, the supplementary health policy has been to committee now from the earliest days of this Assembly, was taken back and reviewed, come back to committee and another set of reviews were done and coming forward now for implementation in the fall. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Premier for his response. I’m glad that he brought up supplemental health. That is obviously what I was concerned about. Yes, supplemental health has come to committee and we have been informed time and time again on what the department intends to do. I don’t believe that it is consistent with the intent of the process convention. I believe the process convention is about working together to find reasonable solutions and listening. Coming to us and telling us what you are going to do is a radically different thing. I am wondering if the Premier can help me understand exactly how this process that they are moving forward with complies with the process convention that talks about specifically under clause 8 that the standing committee and the Cabinet must be briefed and have all the significant implementation tools such as things as ministerial policies, eligibility criteria, program guidelines presented and discussed with us when in fact there are no program guidelines at this point, yet they plan to put a program in place in June and implement in September, which pretty much kills all opportunity for public discussion and debate. How does that comply with the process convention that we have today? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The process convention provides standing committees with the opportunities to influence the policy development and implementation, but ultimately that decision still remains with the Cabinet. After seeking the input and redesigning or altering what was initially put forward, and I’d say in this case that has happened, in fact ongoing discussions are going on to look at what that final piece may be as we get through this stage.
So we continue to work with that convention around all the policies that the Government of the Northwest Territories is looking at and developing. In fact, again, this particular policy has been discussed through this session and has been into committee quite some time ago. It was pulled back, it was launched again earlier in the year, and pulled back again to go around again and have more input on that, and that’s been done. We are now at the stage, feel that we have the best of what we have to put forward. Now there’s a number of things that do need to be looked at before implementation, and we’ll be going to committee with that as we progress. Thank you.
Thank you. In I believe it was the Yellowknifer on May 12th, the Minister of Health indicated that the changes are going ahead this year regardless. So I’m curious how we can apply these process conventions fairly and consistently if it’s clear that the Minister is going to be proceeding this year regardless. I agree there are some things that need to be looked at. I’ll agree that there are some changes that are required, but I’m curious, once again to the Premier, how can we apply this process convention when the Minister is so clearly moving ahead regardless. Thank you.
Thank you. We all know that the newspapers are like gospel, I guess, to certain corners of our Territory, but at the same time we’ve also learned that the quotes that are taken at times can be stretched a little, and I can speak from my own experience as well.
This area has had much debate. In fact, when it was first brought to the 16th Legislative Assembly, it was publicly put out there as well and there was even support granted at that time. Since people have had a look at that more, there were issues raised, concerns raised, we pulled it back based on discussions with Members, had another go-around in redeveloping that and brought it back to committee, had more input. Now the policy convention that we have in place is being used. In fact, it has affected how that policy has been developed or redeveloped as we go forward. There was a recent meeting and some of the substantial issues were raised again and we’re looking to deal with a couple of those substantial issues in a time frame that would still allow us to implement the policy as has been decided.
So, yes, a decision has been made to move forward, but implementation in those areas need to be clarified and changed to fit what we feel can be acceptable for the majority of people in the Northwest Territories and the majority of Members. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
I’d like to, once again, thank the Premier for that answer. I’m not 100 percent sure that we’re getting the answer to the question I’m asking. What I’m talking about is the process convention itself, it talks about the implementation tools and all those types of things. I hear the Premier saying that they have to consider some different aspects of it before they move forward, which seems to suggest to me that there’s no way they’re going to have a plan done in June. If they don’t have a plan done in June, how can they still implement in September? We need to have an opportunity to review, once again, anything that comes forward and have a public debate in this House on anything that comes forward in the future. So how can we do that if they don’t have a plan? If they’re going to make some changes, can they really get them done by June and can we really implement by September? I think the timeline is a little excessive and I think it will hurt the people of the Northwest Territories, not help the people of the Northwest Territories as the Premier wishes to do. Thank you.
Thank you. We believe that June, coming forward with the minor changes as a result of discussions with Members, that we’ll be able to come forward in June for implementation in September. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
