Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my friend, the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, was too modest. I think his hardworking staff is actually overworked staff. So I'd like to ask the Premier, in his responsibility as Minister of Justice, how the government is supporting the access to information regime in the Northwest Territories considering the high demand from the public and the low rate of responsiveness from the government as an entire entity? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the access privacy office has seen an increase in requests and an increase in the complexity of those requests. I'm not sure if there's a huge public demand. It's a relatively small group of people that are being served by that office. There's companies, there's lawyers, there's individuals who are requesting documents that, you know, end up being tens of thousands or thousands of pages. Every single one of those pages has to be found, discovered by someone in say, for example, MACA, who has two people working fulltime to fill these requests for a very very very small segment of the territory. They then have to go to the access and privacy office, and they go through line by line, sometimes tens of thousands of pages, so it is a lot of work. The office has the access and privacy office has seen some vacancies. Those are in the process of being filled, in some cases double filled. And hopefully this month I'm expecting that this month that office will be back to full strength. Thank you.
Thank you. Does the Premier believe that filling those vacancies will correct the issue, and we'll see the rates of timeliness improve? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm confident that the timeliness will improve. I'm not sure if the issue at large will be corrected. Across Canada, governments are struggling to fulfill these ATIP requests. Because of the parameters around them, they're very labour intensive. They take a lot of resources. And I recall conversations back in the 18th Assembly when this legislation was being considered, and we really shot for the moon. I was on the standing committee with the Member from Range Lake that is back then it was Kam Lake and, you know, we did push for these tight timelines and we got them. And now I'm in the position of having to fulfill them and realizing that they're just they're not feasible. So we are going to conduct a review of the ATIP Act and review those timelines because we want to live up to our obligations but we can't set goals for ourselves that are just not achievable with the resources that we have. So we could you know, we could make cuts in other areas and throw a bunch of resources at fulfilling these requests in a more timely fashion, but I think we really need to look at where our priorities are and weigh those against things like this. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the Minister and I have been able to coordinate to work successfully on this in the past. I'd like to work with him again. When will this review be completed as access to information, the public's right to know, is a fundamental priority of any public government. So when will this new review be completed and we could consider it? Thank you.
Thank you. There is a statutory requirement in the act to conclude the review within 18 months of the start of the 20th Assembly. So it must be done before the summer of 2025. Hopefully sooner, but that remains to be seen depending on what the priorities of this Assembly wind up being. Thank you.
Minister of Justice. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister it sounds like no additional resources are coming, so is the Minister contemplating a bill that can correct some of these timelines so we can ensure we're meeting them and we're not putting additional pressures on our staff that are just ensuring that the system fails? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, there needs to be some relief for the staff and this process needs to be one that is doable and achievable. And so based on that review, we'll make a decision about which direction we go. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that setting some more reasonable timelines is on the table. So we'll be looking at everything, including the timelines. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
