Thank you, Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Premier. When I was first elected, I quickly realized how little I knew in the context of government policy and process, and it's certainly a long journey. But since coming back to this Assembly, I notice there seems to be a theme which is Members are asked, either by Ministers or Minister assistants, to supply questions in advance. I'm asking the Premier specifically, is it a mandate position or an expectation in the Simpson government that Members would supply questions in advance to the Ministers? Thank you.
Colleagues, before the Premier answers, it's the Government of the Northwest Territories, it's not specific persons/individuals. So please rely on the Government of the Northwest Territories for future questioning.
Thank you. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And no, that is not the policy. It is just the way that we like to do business is by cooperating and communicating. And for the past eight years as I've been an MLA, that has been common practice. In the last government, the Regular Members would actually share the -- at least the titles of their Member's statements and their questions with Cabinet early in the morning. So it's just we're just all trying to get along here, and we want to make sure that when Members have questions that, as Cabinet, we can provide good answers. We don't know everything, all the ins and outs of all of our departments. It's not all on the tip of our tongue or at the top of our mind. Sometimes we'll need to go and read a briefing note to refresh our memory about something that maybe we haven't dealt with in a couple weeks or a couple months. And so the rationale behind asking a Member, hey, what are you going to be asking me today, is so that we can come back, do our homework, and give good answers for the Members and for the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And hearing the Premier's answer, which I thank him for, because I didn't give him notice I was asking these questions, but that said it sounds like there's an expectation that Members are here to set Ministers up so they look really good. Is that a fact? Or are Ministers expected to know their departments with some fullness of effort? Thank you.
Thank you. And I'm not sure what the Member was listening to, but I never said that the Members are here to set us up to make us look good. There is an expectation that Ministers do know their portfolios. Here in the Northwest Territories, we have a relatively small Cabinet yet we still are expected to deliver all of the programs and services in all of the same areas that they do in other places in Canada where they might have 10, 20, or 30 Cabinet Ministers. I personally, in the last government, I think I had 14 or 15 different FPT tables that I sat at - that's federal, provincial, and territorial tables, whereas that's pretty uncommon across Canada. In the smaller jurisdictions, it is a bit more common but there is a lot to know. And while there is an expectation that Cabinet does have a good grasp on their portfolio, I don't think it's reasonable to expect the Ministers to have a photographic memory for each of their policies, each of the pieces of legislation that they're responsible for, every staff that the department produces. And so if the Members don't want to provide questions, that's their right. I've never hounded any Member for their questions. If a Member says I'm not going to let you know what my questions are, that's fine. We come to the House, and we give the best answers that we can. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we all know, questions are to illuminate information, probe concerns, and chase down individual details, and there's a reasonable expectation that certain information cannot be at the tip of the Ministers' fingers. So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify one more time on the record, is there any type of informal impression that the government will take if a Member -- not informal -- or actually now I'm trying to qualify this in a way -- is there any sort of backlash or negative response or attitude from the government if a Member chooses not to proceed that -- because sometimes questions come on the fly, and initiatives need to be raised in the context they're presented, so I just want to make sure Members are not prejudiced in some form. If the Premier could clarify that in some way. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's no hard feelings if Members don't want to provide questions in advance or give Ministers a heads up about what they might be speaking about. Since my very first day as an MLA, I've been very strong on the topic of MLA independence. As a Regular Member or as an MLA representing my constituents, I don't allow anyone to tell me what to do except my constituents. And I'm not telling the Regular Members what to do, and if I tried I wouldn't expect them to listen to me. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Oral questions. Colleagues, looking at the time, we will have a brief recess to give our translators a break, and then we'll come back to continue our business. Thank you.
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