Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Premier today, Minister responsible for the Executive, I believe.
In having heard from the participants of the summit that the elimination of poverty has to be the highest priority for this government, and me having advised the Premier of that, and it was also in a press release that came out a week or so ago, I would like to first of all ask the Premier if he can tell us just how that will happen. What will he do to make the eradication of poverty a high priority for this government and what will he do to make sure that the work on eradicating poverty is done before the end of this Assembly? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work of this Legislative Assembly on an annual basis covers a large area that affects the poverty of the Northwest Territories in the sense of trying to eradicate it by those programs we have but not going down that path instead to the work that has begun. I committed to Members in this House that we would begin to do our work in Executive. There has been an internal working group established with them. The Executive supports the work and an advisory group of external stakeholders to help. They are looking at the work that has come through. Some of that was recently held. That will also be fed into this system to see what areas we could look at strengthening. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Premier. One of the other recommendations, a major recommendation from the summit was that any work done on eliminating poverty has to involve everyone -- NGOs that are providing services, local governments, social justice organizations -- not just the territorial government. If we hear as already mentioned and we do know that there has been a working group established, but that working group is composed of GNWT staff. The advisory group is made up of stakeholders. That basically contravenes the recommendation from the summit. I would like to ask the Premier if he is willing to change the format of the working group to not only involve GNWT staff but also involve key stakeholders involved in dealing with residents who are enduring poverty. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as the work that is just getting underway, again, the internal working group because it takes a number of departments who are in that delivery that will have to go to their departments if things are to change or if there is a requirement for enhanced resources. The external group is there to guide that work as it happens. That is a process we have established. If it clearly shows it is not working, then we would be prepared to look at what we can do as we go forward. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat dismayed by the Premier’s answer, because I think what the summit said was that we need to not just have the work done by GNWT people at the outset, that we need to involve everybody at the outset or else we are not going to get meaningful input or analysis of what we currently do.
As well, during the summit, in terms of the work that needed to be done, it was stated that we needed to start to work from the ground up, not look at what is existing but basically start with a clean slate, a zero-based review, so to speak. I would like to ask the Premier what kind of work is anticipated in terms of the working group, whether it is with or without the NGOs. I would hope it is with, but what kind of work is the government going to do? How do they intend to go about developing an Anti-Poverty Strategy? Will we start from what exists or will we use the blank slate approach? Thank you.
Thank you. The process we’ve engaged in is one where we have to first measure where we are and what we have in place. At that point decisions can be made as to the approach of coming up with a strategy that will work for the NWT. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to say to the Premier’s offer to measure, absolutely we must measure where we are. Much of that work was done during the Anti-Poverty Summit and that work cannot proceed if we don’t involve everybody who is currently involved in anti-poverty actions, whether it be territorial government programs or non-government groups that are working to help people out in the trenches, so to speak.
So I guess I would like to ask the Premier again if he will reconsider this working group and reconsider expanding it to include the key stakeholders at the outset, not in an advisory capacity but in a working capacity. Thank you.
Thank you. One of the things I’ve realized is that the bigger the group gets, the longer it takes the process and decisions. What I will say is that I’m prepared to discuss with the Executive to see how this working group can do its work along with the advisors on this and see how that can function, or how we can improve that relationship. But as the Member has stated, one, to see something come forward in the lifetime of this Assembly and one of the things we have to realize is it’s one thing to establish a working group or come up with a strategy, it’s another thing that we have to come up and fund that and we have to make sure that we line up all of those as well. So I’m prepared to go back to the Executive and have a discussion about that process and how that work gets done. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
