Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. On March 20th, the GNWT announced a $13.2 million economic relief package for NWT businesses. This plan committed the GNWT to creating a business advisory council. This council has turned into a bit of a hurry-and-wait exercise for businesses that really want an opportunity to provide some feedback. Will the Minister make a commitment that the membership, meeting schedule, and terms of reference of the business advisory council be made public during this sitting? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The business advisory council is one of the three advisory bodies that our government is looking to put in place to guide our actions going forward. We have received initial input from the Members, so thank you for that, and we have incorporated their feedback into our terms of reference as well as our composition.
I appreciate it has now been just over two months since I and Minister Wawzonek first announced the proposed establishment of the council. It was partly due to our subsequent decision to establish the other two councils and then create an overarching theme between the three, so it did create some delays with getting the advisory council out. Our intent is that the role of the three advisory councils will complement each other so that we do capture as much as we can under the Indigenous community one, the health and social sector recovery, and then, as well, the business council. We are working hard to ensure there is a broad, diverse representation on the council and that there are inputs. Admittedly, this has taken longer than we anticipated, and we do appreciate the Members' patience with that.
Does the Minister have an idea when we will see the first meeting of the business advisory council?
We have contacted the organizations that we are using to sort of staff or populate the councils, so the idea is to organize within either this week or by the end of next week a membership meeting with them.
Is it safe to assume that the membership, along with the terms of reference, will then be made public during our sitting this time around?
We definitely commit to having an open and transparent and collaborative government. I would like to actually have the conversation, though, first, with the membership as well as the two co-chairs of the council so that we can determine if that is the best movement for it. Personally, right now, I think that should be fine, but I do want to respect their privacy and their thoughts and whether or not they thought there needed to be some element of confidentiality around the council.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Should this be made public, which I hope it will be, is there an appeal process that the department has thought about, for if members of the business community would like to be able to be more readily involved or would like to be able to provide feedback to the terms of reference? Thank you.
With the way the structure of the council is working, it is to have the representatives be fed up through the organizations that we have contacted, so the idea being that those organizations will do the work themselves, and then their representative will bring it forward. Through that manner, members of those organizations will input on things within the council. I would imagine, as anything else, I have always expressed that my department is open to any sorts of feedback or comments or conversations, so I would still commit that again. If there are people who have concerns about the council, they are very welcome to reach out to us and have that conversation, and we will go forward that way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
