Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I have a few more questions for my colleague, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. I heard her say that the campaign schools were being offered by the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs in the short term. I'm wondering if she has prepared over the long term to commit to taking the campaign schools back to the Status of Women and asking them to re-tool the content so that it reaches people who are running for all orders of government? Thank you.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As stated earlier, we are just in the stage of renewing it and making it fit the people more appropriately. We will be doing an evaluation at that point, where we will be deciding what we are going to do with it. I also want to say, though, that we are looking at expanding it so that it can meet more of the needs of people and addressing municipal Indigenous governments, for example, but also the budget, we want to make sure that we can do it the most cost-effective way to be able to reach the most communities. It's important. These are important schools. They actually make a difference in women's lives. We are looking at it from not only one aspect, but from many aspects.
Once we are finished that work, I would be more than interested to work with the Status of Women to actually see if they can take this on again because, as I have stated many, many times, my understanding is that the Status of Women has a defined role and part of that is supporting the Minister of the Status of Women. It would be just logical, Mr. Speaker, that they would assist me in that work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Minister's answer. Where I'm coming from is that I think, as a matter of principle, we don't want civil servants to train future politicians. We want that to happen at arm's length. The Status of Women has have lots of experience in this area, and I think that, once they are back up to speed, they should be the go-to group.
Now, there was a review of the campaign schools in 2017. It has never been made public. Can the Minister commit to making it public?
I won't make that commitment at this time. I need to go back and look at it. The review that we did was internal, and it wasn't actually done under my direction. It was just an employee who offered to assist us with that, so I have to go back and look at it to determine if that was a formal report or was that just a volunteer who was assisting us with looking at making the campaign school better, so I'm not sure if it was a paid position or just a volunteer.
To refresh the memory of the Minister, this work was undertaken by a member of the Department of Executive. She was the paid government employee working on the evaluation of the campaign school. I wonder if the Minister could take that into account when she's asking the question of her staff about making the report public?
Absolutely, I will take that into consideration. I just want to note that a lot of people who work for the government actually have a real concern. They want more women in leadership. My understanding, and I will check on that because I may be wrong, is that the majority, I think all of them except for my special advisor, actually were not paid for any of the work that they have done for the campaign schools. It's tended to be on the weekends on our own times, so I will confirm if that is true, because it's important to note. If it is not true, I will come back to the speaker and stand up formally and make a formal clarification.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me make a clarification of my own: the evaluation was completed by a by a member of the Department of the Executive and Indigenous Affairs. I'm not talking about the staffing at the campaign schools.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering, given the fact that the Minister is encouraging the council, working with the council, directing the council to refocus its role, whether she plans to consult the public about this refocus and whether there will be an opportunity for people to give their views on the Status of Women Council and its mandate? Thank you.
I think that being accountable to the public and having the most input from the public is advisable. I don't want to make it a public show. What I will do, though, is I will commit to doing a survey to find out, and hopefully from all residents, but especially for women. This is the Status of Women, so trying to get a gender-based viewpoint on what the women residents and young girls and women residents of the Northwest Territories feel that we should be doing as the Status of Women, I will commit to doing that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
