Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services has an excellent cultural safety unit that has made huge progress on decolonizing the government's the health department's approach to dealing with Indigenous peoples in the health care system and creating a safe environment for Indigenous peoples. I'm wondering and MLAs have all been part of that process as well, and I can speak from personal experience that it was a good one. Is the Premier willing to move that unit into the department of executive and take a wholeofgovernment approach to cultural safety training? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the question. The MLA noted that all MLAs actually participated in that training, and so I think we here in this room understand the value of it. Cultural safety, it's a concept that originates from health academics and the GNWT began, I guess, developing the program and offering it using federal funding, so under the health innovation fund I believe, and now through another pot of federal funding directly related to health. So that's why it has been situated in health. That being said, we have expanded the delivery of that program to a few different groups. So the MLAs, I know the deputy ministers, and assistant deputy ministers have taken in. And there's another opportunity for those who haven't gotten to as well. So I understand what the Member is saying. We can look at perhaps where this program might fit better, but that's not a decision to make lightly. So I appreciate the Member has a policy proposal and an organizational structure redesign that he's suggesting, and so I'm happy to go back to the department and have them look into it, but these aren't the kind of things that I want to just say yes to on the floor of the House. There's a lot more thought and research that needs to go into these things behind the scenes before we could advance something like that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Premier. I appreciate that we can't make decisions here. but we can ask succinct questions. I think that's the best way to do it. So will the Premier at least ensure that a policy lens for cultural safety is included when policy analysis is done on government briefing notes? There's a matrix that they use, can cultural safety be one of those to ensure that we're not missing out when we're making decisions or advising Ministers and decisionmakers on how we should proceed on things. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm happy to look into that as well. I appreciate that when we are developing programs and policies, we need to have a certain mindset. I've seen you know, my time as an MLA, I've seen policies and programs that you could tell were missing a certain lens at the very beginning, whether it was an economic lens, an environmental lens, or a cultural safety lens. So I'm happy to go back and see exactly what the process is, what is considered, and how we may be able to improve that process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe or, if not a full unit or the full program, can the Minister ensure that there is someone in Executive and Indigenous Affairs who can provide that ongoing advice if requested by other departments so we can at least ensure there's someone who's active in providing cultural safety expertise to departments when needed? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I understand that this the group in health has already provided that type of advice. I actually have someone in my office who is an expert in this area as well so I'm happy to have that conversation and see whether or not we can or how we can better support departments. Thank you.
Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier extend that training to middle management as well, so it's not just the deputy minister level and our honourable colleagues here but also managers of the public service who are really doing the daytoday operations of the GNWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't make any commitments I don't want to make any commitments on behalf of the Minister of health. But I think that's a good suggestion. It is a very labour intensive program to offer. As Members know, it's not easy. It's not easy on the facilitators either. And so we also have to take into consideration that the people who are delivering this training, you know, there's an impact on them as well. So there's a number of things that we need to consider. I agree that it's something that I wish we could offer it across government, and there have been constant movements in that direction, to expand it to more people, to make it a more robust program. So I'll go back, and I will have those conversations. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
