Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. With such a big job ahead of us, there are a lot of questions that we could ask both Premiers. As Members of the Legislative Assembly, we deal with a lot of constituency concerns. Some of them, in some cases, can't get addressed due to the complexity of the issue of the complexity of how government operates.
Establishing an office of the ombudsman in the Northwest Territories has been under discussion since the 12th Legislative Assembly and, most recently, three motions were passed during the 17th Legislative Assembly, one asking for the GNWT to bring forward legislation for the establishment of an ombudsman for the Northwest Territories. That came back with the response that there are appeals processes provided to people of the Northwest Territories.
Secondly, when that response came back, it gave the Government Operations an opportunity to review what are the good chances of an ombudsman's office. What came out of that was that we needed to create legislation so that the members of the public understand their rights and that the ombudsman provides a single point of contact for people who have difficulty dealing with the GNWT
A final motion called for legislation once again, and that response was tabled in February of 2015. Most recently, a draft Ombudsman Act for the Northwest Territories was tabled in this House October 1, 2015. This was big on the agenda of many Members in the last government who sat on Government Operations. We do have a lot of appeals processes throughout the Northwest Territories, but when you go to one area, you get passed to another person, to another person. If we had that single point of contact as an office of the ombudsman here in the Northwest Territories... A lot of jurisdictions have it. The Yukon has it.
I want to ask both candidates running for Premier, will you support the creation of an office of the ombudsman so that people in the Northwest Territories who are having difficulties dealing with the GNWT have a single point of contact to get their issues addressed?