Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am always happy to hear from MLAs, and I often do drop down to your side of the hall and to hear your opinions. You will recall, of course, that just a couple of weeks ago, we were up at Reindeer Station, and there was a full discussion of many of the issues, and nobody shied away from that discussion. You had access to us. We heard all of your ideas and took many of them with us. I think that openness will continue. Certainly, for me. I can say that I will continue to meet with you whenever you want. Very happy to come down and speak to you in your office, and I am sure that I speak for the Cabinet in that. Thank you.

Masi. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, early in the life of this Assembly, I think even before the TLC, I think I talked to a lot of new Members and said, "Make sure regardless of where you are sitting, whether you are on the Cabinet side or the non-Cabinet side, go up and down the hallway and talk to people because this building is about relationships. This building is about working together." I do. I feel like I do get down the hallway. I talk to Members in their offices. I am thankful that most of the Members come to my office on a regular basis and talk to me about issues that are important to them, whether we are talking about a constituent issue which is a little different than a policy or a program or a legislative issue. I have travelled with Members to their communities. I have spent time with them in their communities talking to their residents. I do believe that it is critical for Members on both sides to work together, and to spend time going down and talking to each other in their offices, and it is two-way. I feel like Members have felt like they could come to my office. My office door is always open, and it will remain open regardless of where I sit in this building, and I am looking forward to continuing to have that relationship where people feel comfortable, hopefully feel comfortable coming to my office, and I feel comfortable going to theirs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Schumann.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Relationships. That is what it is all about, this job. It is not just with the Members of the 18th Legislative Assembly. It is about having relationships with all people of the Northwest Territories. We have to be very approachable, be able to have conversations, but the biggest thing I think as a Minister, in particular, is you have to have the ability to listen. Listening is the best way of communicating. In my ability, one of the things that my Cabinet colleagues will probably tell you is I tend to probably sit there and listen more than I do talking. I have been to all 33 communities of the Northwest Territories in the last two years already. I have not got to go with every Member across the floor on their constituency things, but I have gone with a number of you to your communities and hear what the residents had to say in the Northwest Territories. We take that back and use those as part of our deliberations and considerations on how we move things forward. I think my biggest strength is to be able to listen to what people have to say. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would be the first to admit that I do not go up and down the hallways of the Regular Members on a regular basis. Being an out-of-town Minister when I do get to Yellowknife, there are other meetings that I have with other organizations and partners that I work with closely to address educational concerns, and however, I do communicate through e-mails, phone calls, correspondence to committees. As Minister Abernethy said, when I am in town and I am in my office, the door is always open. I do get Members that come by and sit down, talk about the issues, and even just discussions. I also travel to the communities on community tours. I have attended constituency meetings with Members, and willing to continue to do that in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Robert C. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as the longest serving Member of this House, I feel sometimes that with my past experience, and I think I have tried to provide advice to a lot of the Members when they first got elected as to how it works. Communication is big. I would like to think I have a relationship with all the Members over there. I have Members coming into my office and we chat, and we have a lot of opportunities to communicate. I go down the hall once in a while, maybe not as often as I should, but we have plenty of opportunity to communicate. I am also a Member of the "outdoor Caucus," so I have an opportunity out there to communicate with some of the Members as well.

Ministers have said, communication is key in the work that we do, and I think I have taken that to heart. I do take to heart the fact that I am the longest serving Member in this Assembly, and I have tried to provide advice to Members about experiences I have learned from the past. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do believe actually that I have a good working relationship with most of the MLAs. I do walk down the hall, not only because my nephew actually needs a ride home but also to talk to people as well. I receive phone calls late at night, and I have spent hours talking to Regular MLAs on the phone in the evenings. I am not opening that up to everyone else as well. It is not nice all the time when it is midnight and I am still on the phone. I recognize that I do not know everything. I am old enough that I feel comfortable enough to say that I have areas to grow in, and when I know that there are Regular MLAs out there that have expertise in different fields, such as youth sports or politics, I go to those MLAs and ask them for their advice because those are areas of weakness, and I respect their expertise, and that only helps me grow as a better person and a better Minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Questions for Ministers. Next on my list is Member Nakimayak.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was a very entertaining conversation, and the song, You are Always on my Mind comes to mind after listening to the Ministers. Mr. Chair, earlier I spoke about Indigenous governments, and Indigenous people, and communities across the territory. My next question, the direction I am going, for all the Ministers in their department, in their respective departments, I know there has been a lot of engagement with the Inuvialuit, with other Indigenous groups especially in my region. The Members mentioned earlier that given a vote of non-confidence, they would not resign. Maybe there is something of a lesson learned coming from things like this, and what else can we do better, and where can we improve, and where can we accelerate, and sometimes drive policy faster than other places in Canada? We are certainly in a position to do that with this government seeing how we work with other Indigenous organizations in the territory. Mr. Chair, my question to the Ministers are, in all their departments that they lead is: what will you do next in the next two years, and then the next five years, ten years, moving forward, so that this Legislative Assembly is at its best standing as we change leadership in the next term, and as well further down the road, and how are they going to plan to work with the Indigenous organizations collaboratively? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As Members know, over the last few years, we have implemented a lot of strategies, action plans, initiatives that we are going to have to monitor and evaluate over the next two years, so that gives us direction to make evidence-based decisions for the next government that is coming in. I am very excited with the work the Department of Education has done, and the work that we started with Indigenous governments, with the IRC as well. Monitoring, evaluating, and making sure that the decisions that we have made as a department and as a government continue to be pursued, supported with resources financially, human resources, so that we see success, so that we see our Northerners getting the jobs. We see our Northerners getting educated. We see success in early childhood. We are going to monitor, evaluate, and then at the end of this government, we usually develop a transition document, and hopefully all the initiatives that we have started, have implemented within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment will continue to be supported in future governments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister Robert C. McLeod.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the things I would like to see before the end of this government, I think we have already started the work, and then as we transition into a 19th Assembly, I would like to see the financial situation improve so that there is an opportunity for the 19th Assembly to make a lot of investments that would benefit the people in the Northwest Territories, and I think we are well on our way. We just need to continue to do the work for the next two years.

On the Environment and Natural Resources side of it, caribou is a big issue. One of the things, and I have given a shout out to the Aboriginal government before. I thought they showed a lot of leadership in governing themselves as far as the harvesting of caribou goes. I would like to see, not only the next Assembly, but 20 Assemblies down the road, I would like them to still have the opportunity to practice what we have been practicing for many years. I think through the leadership shown by many of the Aboriginal governments, I think that is going to happen. There is a number of other initiatives that I would like to see this Assembly complete within the next two years, and as we go through the business plans and in our conversations with the Members, I think we will have an opportunity to work with them on advancing some of the issues and priorities of the 18th Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, none of us are guaranteed to be here beyond the next two years. The next Assembly could be 18 or 19 new Members with new ideas, new initiatives, but the things we do today, the things that we do in this Assembly do have lasting impacts on people of the Northwest Territories. It is important that we work together to get these things right. There are things that I would like to see concluded in the life of this government, and I will talk about Health and Social Services, specific things, that will carry on beyond. One of the things that we need to get done is we really need to lock down and get the work done in the long-term care facilities. We have a plan but we need to get those buildings built and those people employed. That is going to create employment in all regions of the Northwest Territories. Hundreds of new jobs that do not exist today that will exist outside of Yellowknife, in Hay River, in Inuvik, in the Deh Cho, in the Sahtu, real jobs. As I have travelled around the Northwest Territories, I have talked to leaders about employing local people, training local people for local work. There are huge opportunities here, and Health and Social Services, although it is a social provider of services, it is also a massive economic driver. We employ more people in Health and Social Services than any other department in the Government of the Northwest Territories, so these things that we are doing will have long-term impact on people of the Northwest Territories, both from employment but from a high quality care. There is lots of work to get done. I am excited by the opportunities that it presents, and I am excited to work with Members to make these things a reality before we are gone in two years. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Schumann.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. How would we work with Indigenous organizations collaboratively in the life of the Assembly in years to come? First of all, my portfolios all based greatly around economic development, and our commitment is to work to help support the growth of Aboriginal governments and Aboriginal people, and also help them build capacity. These are very important to the people of the Northwest Territories, in particular, Aboriginal organizations going forward because we need these types of supports and capacity going forward to make a better Northwest Territories for everybody, and concluding particularly Aboriginal governments and their people in their regions. My department is working very hard on these sorts of things, and we will continue to do that.

I think one of the other things that we need to do collaboratively with Aboriginal governments and people in the Northwest Territories is collaboration around federal issues. Our issues sometimes do not exactly match up with theirs, and in a lot of cases, they do. They have particular issues around some federal issues that we need to work with them collaboratively moving things forward along with the federal government. I think that will continue on well past this Assembly because every federal government has their own agenda going forward.

That being said, it comes back to some of the stuff we have already talked about today. We need to help some of these Aboriginal governments settle their land claims, get on with self-government, get those concluded so they can bring certainty to their organizations and their people and to continue to work on the betterment of residents in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. How will we support Indigenous governments even after we are finished here? I went to university as an adult single parent with two kids, and as an Indigenous woman, it was actually when I took Indigenous studies that I learned about the trauma that happened with Indigenous people, things I did not know about, things that were kept a secret growing up.

I also learned about self-government 20 years ago and the healing process. I heard that, I took that to heart, and I believe that. All of the years that I have practised, outside of these Chambers as well, I have focused on self-government and giving Indigenous people the right to self-determination and the right to define their own paths and their own healing.

I am not waiting until the next Legislative Assembly. I have been doing work. The Housing Corporation has done a community initiative that we work with Aboriginal governments, not only the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, but there are other Aboriginal governments that have come forward, so that we can work in partnership to address their housing needs and meet the needs of the Housing Corporation as well.

We are doing a communication strategy, and we are revising our workshops for women in politics so that we actually have a mentoring piece, and I am hoping that will carry on. I know that I am committed to mentoring other women in leadership, and I am hoping that the other solo woman here will actually provide more time after as well. I know that we are both committed to seeing more women in leadership. MACA has just finished the online training components for Aboriginal self-government so that they have the skills, and we are always looking at revising and updating it. I think that we have worked hard to support Aboriginal governments now, and when the time comes, the transitional report will have my recommendations as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Masi. Minister Sebert.