Thank you, Mr. Chair. Premier candidates, considering the unprecedented wildfire events this summer and the impact to Hay River and Enterprise, with the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and so that no other community in the Northwest Territories has to go what we went through, would you support a third party independent of this government review on the wildfires?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as one of the earlier questions I had the opportunity to take note that given the unprecedented nature of what's occurred that a rather unprecedented response and including an unprecedented style of review is likely in order. As to the design and structure of it, Mr. Speaker, an independent is being called for but also an opportunity for the public to be more engaged and to be better engaged with what's happening and their experiences of it as well as ensuring that what we are doing aligns with interests from Indigenous governments who also have suggested that there needed to be a different way of responding to what happened this summer, both in terms of the communities that were directly affected, such as Enterprise and Hay River, but also when they were facing indirect effects. When Yellowknife was evacuated, many communities faced immediate impacts to their food supply chain. So certainly in that sense, the answer in some ways is easy but I do want to emphasize, Mr. Chair, with this opportunity I am concerned looking forward to the spring. We are likely to face emergencies in the matter of a few months, and that will be happening. Perhaps we can get as far as an interim response. My fear is that we wouldn't be. And I do want to make sure that we have an opportunity to make any changes right now so that the lines of communications that are clear so that there's no question as to where people can get their information and so it is clear as to what the chains of command are and where they will be situated in the event that there is a call of an emergency and particularly if there's a state of emergency so that there is both the bigger picture in long term but also in that of the shorter term responses. If, in fact, this is to be another wildfire season, one thing I would ask if there are wildfire plans across the Northwest Territories, they are now becoming somewhat dated. I would like to look at where our highest risk zones are and look at whether or not those plans for those higher risk zones can be prioritized to be reviewed in advance of this wildfire season. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I am in support of an independent review of the wildfire season and the response. I don't think there's any question that that's what needs to happen. It can't be a run-of-the-mill review. It needs to be an enhanced review. I think we're all still coming to terms with what happened, the fact that two-thirds of the territory was evacuated. The level of trauma that was involved and then the Member who asked the question is probably more aware of that than I am. There was trauma in this territory. There's trauma in Hay River about what happened. I'm sure there's trauma in Yellowknife, in Behchoko, and the other communities. And so the public needs to feel as though that the review is being taken seriously and that it's going to make a change. I think it's very important that, you know, as the public government we listen to the public when they ask for this and that we deliver it. We need to help the territory heal. We also need obviously to learn from what happened so that it doesn't happen again. You know, there's a number of things I could go into, many of the details, but yes, I'm fully in support of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Member for the question. It took days in some cases for some communities to be notified of what was going on with the emergency management -- or the territorial emergency management effort while they had to be left to their own devices to figure out to do things, you know, and that shouldn't be a case for any of our communities in the Northwest Territories. And I think we all understand the real human impact this whole -- this incident and how it was managed had on communities, had on people. And that's why this independent review is so important. And I firmly believe it needs to be driven by this House and not by a government, not by an external contractor, but be in the hands of this House and this House sets the terms of reference, and this House ensures that all 19 Members are the ones who are driving the process forward and it reports back here, and it is not a GNWT process, it is not a local process. It is a process that belongs to the people through the Legislative Assembly. And as I said, as Premier I would fully direct the GNWT to cooperate with that process and provide any kind of support that can be provided to make sure clear answers are being given to why decisions were made. I don't think anyone -- I don't think we should be in a position to second guess why the big decisions were made, right, but we should know why they were made, but we should know what systems need to change, what worked, what didn't, because clearly some things didn't. And there are experts out there who know how these things can be managed, who knows how these systems work, and they need to be heard and they need to be put into places where they can actually change the system from top to bottom so we don't run into this problem again, and I support that, which is why I support the creation of a new department of public safety and emergency preparedness. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Clerk. Mr. Clerk, my question today is about leadership. The Premier of the NWT does not have the same formal powers as our federal and provincial counterparts. NWT premiers don't drive the government's political platform, control the majority of Members in the House, select their own Cabinet, and determine the timing of elections or schedule the Legislative Assembly. Despite these constraints, both MLAs and the public expect that the Premier's role brings something special to the effective functioning of Cabinet. What are you bringing to distinguish your role and given that, how would you exercise leadership? Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, you know, I've often given that same preamble when I talked about the Premiership and the powers of the Premier. The Premier is not like, in other jurisdictions in Canada, you know, Danielle Smith can say what she wants done and it gets done. That is not the situation here in the territory. So we are forced to work together. And I think that's a good thing. And so my style, as I've said many times, would be to bring people together. That is the only way forward. The Premier does write mandate letters for the Ministers and for the deputy ministers and in those mandate letters, I would ensure that what is expected of the Ministers and the deputy ministers is included so that there are parameters for the decisions that are made, for the types of initiatives that are undertaken, and for how we deliver and develop policies and services for our residents.

It's also important that the Cabinet and the Regular Members work together. You know, if there's an issue on Cabinet, there's a Cabinet Minister who needs to be removed, the Premier can't remove them. They can take away portfolios, but they need the support of the House to remove that Minister. And so you can't just remove portfolios and have a Minister sitting there with no -- nothing to do. And so that means that if you do that, the House has to know, they have to have faith that that was done for a reason and they have to support it. So working together is of the utmost importance. I believe I've done that as a Minister to the greatest extent possible. As Premier, I've given thought to how I would implement that across all departments to ensure that all Ministers are working in the same way and serving the Regular Members and the public in that type of fashion as well. And so there are structural changes we can make to how we operate upstairs in our offices. So working together is the bottom line, and I believe that I can bring people together. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Member for the question. My approach is to empower Members to succeed and not only Members of the Cabinet but Members of the Legislative Assembly as well. I've spent the last two weeks chatting with my colleagues here, learning what opportunities and challenges exist in their regions, what kind of roles they want to play in the Assembly and the kind of priorities that they want to see in the next Cabinet. And I did that not to horse trade or curry favour but to understand what the next -- what the options and -- what the available options are out there, what people actually want us to -- want to succeed in. And everyone needs a win, everyone needs to be a leader in their own community, and everyone needs to be front and center representing their constituents. And, you know, I believe I really enjoyed those conversations. I've learned a lot from all of you. And I've, you know, tailored my speech and my approach to this whole thing to be about listening, listening to your concerns, listening to how we can work together effectively. And that's what empowerment means to me. It's not sitting back and, you know, opening the door and forming good relations. We can always do that. But it's about giving back to every Member of this Assembly so we can all share in the success of this Assembly and all shoulder the challenges together. And that's why I propose associate Ministers to be a fundamental change to how this Assembly works and give Regular Members who are chairs of standing committee more profile as associate Ministers and more access to Cabinet so they're not just sitting in a room waiting for the government to come and drop a briefing on them, whether it's ahead of time or after, or in public or in camera, but actually being part of the process every step of the way so they know what's going on and they can help drive that progress. For me, it's about everyone in this Assembly being able to come together and be proud at the end of the day that we've worked together effectively and get the things that you got elected to do done in your ridings. And I'm committed to do that if I'm successful as Premier. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think what I'd like to bring and what I do bring is an empathy driven approach to action and delivery. I care very deeply. That is why I went to law school in the first place. That is why I ran for office. And that is ultimately why I did, after discussing and connecting with colleagues here, after talking to Indigenous leaders that I know, made the decision to put my name forward for Premier. I'd like to continue as I have started, which is through dialogue and communication which provides, in my view, transparency, but also with shared vision. And I have said before the vision is not singularly that of Premier, but the Premier is responsible for delivering a vision on behalf of this Assembly and on the government. We are only just at the point of setting our priorities but it is clear that we have shared vision, in my view, for the Northwest Territories to be healthier, to be better educated, and to be able to maximize who we are for every single region.

And so with that, as far as being a leader is concerned, I believe I can help motivate the team - the team of Cabinet, the team of government, through a shared vision, by acting out myself as a leader as I would like others to act, and I believe we can deliver on all of our actions through the structures within government. Having simple things, regular meetings between the Premier and every Ministers' office, including their deputies; regular meetings with our regional directors and superintendents as I described earlier; ensuring that our meetings are driven by priorities, driven by priorities which are driven by action lines which are actions and timelines; that we check back on them so that we know that if there is a barrier to undertaking something, any action in a region, in a community, that we remove that barrier, and we do it before there's a delay. And that provides accountability and that's fundamentally where I would like to end. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. My question is in regards to the youth and the recreation infrastructure that's available and/or lack of infrastructure that's available within the smaller communities.

With the high volume of drugs and alcohol in our communities, we have to find alternative measures to keep our youth occupied. There's climate change. It's becoming a shorter period of time for our youth to engage in hockey tournaments or in hockey within our communities. We've struggled with this for a long time, and we've tried other alternatives like cultural activities. We have a dance group that's from Fort McPherson, the Tetlit Gwich'in dancers that travel throughout Canada to perform, and this brings them -- they're really proud of their -- what they're doing, and it makes them happy. So we need more culturally based and recreation programs within our community. My question is what are you going to do to improve the infrastructure within the communities to help our youth stay away from the use of alcohol and drugs?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Member for the question. I think this touches on the real issue around many of the public safety concerns we have in communities, that there are root causes that are creating many of the challenges we face and, in this case, not having -- having any adequate facilities to provide activities and engagement for youth often allows them to be led astray. And this is something that we can -- that the Member clearly pointed out and that I think we've heard around the Northwest Territories. So I think it is time to carefully look at what funding sources are available for all arts and culture programs in the Northwest Territories, can we contribute to local infrastructure that's going to make a difference as well, and leverage this strength of self-governments and regional governments as well, to work with them, to build these facilities. I'm committed to closing the municipal funding gap. That's going to provide more resources for operations and maintenance to municipalities that would allow them to maintain those kinds of facilities that the Member was asking for. And I think that's the key piece here. Even if we put a new school in or a new rec centre, there needs to be funding attached so it stays open and stays in good repair. So we need to look at all those things. And I think the best way to do that, again, is a regional approach, where we listen to what the communities want, we empower communities by giving them the resources they need, and we kind of get out of the way and we let the GNWT provide support where they need support, like in engineering plans and things like that. But listen to the needs of the community and be there for them when they need our help to ensure that they have success, that they are empowered, and that especially the next generation of Northerners are given access to the facilities that they need to stay healthy and safe in their own communities and embrace the culture that's so important to First Peoples in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think the idea that some of the youth, who are in some of the most vulnerable communities and most at risk, are not having access to services, I find that to be something that we need to take a moment and connect in to the other priorities we're talking about around addictions and wellness and recovery. So tackling this from the perspective of a whole-of-government priority, looking again at what is our response to addictions, where do the youth and youth activities and sports fit into that, mental wellness, is it in our educational funding formulas? Is it in health and social services funds? I think there's an opportunity here to look at better integrating this issue into some of the bigger issues that are right now seeing increases in funding and where there are calls for increases in funding.

One of the other areas, though, that I want to touch on here is in the non-profit sector. There are non-profits across -- and NGOs, sports organizations, cultural organizations, across the Northwest Territories working to deliver this kind of opportunity to youth, to adults, to everyone in their communities. And without much fanfare, there was a review done, independent, strengthening the non-profit and charitable sector. It was tabled here in the fall. It was done by people from within this area, from within the non-profits, and they landed on something, that I had also found, which is way back in 2014 we put out something called the Government of the Northwest Territories Program Managers Guide to Funding for NGOs. It is meant to help increase the capacity of our non-profit sector, better empower them to deliver what they do and to do what they do well, and it is time that we stop having to review these things and actually get this implemented so we have more opportunities across Northwest Territories in this sector for those delivering on those programs and services. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Youth will find something to do. You know, we can't say don't do drugs, don't get into trouble; they'll find something to do. So what we need to do is give them an alternative to those things. We need to give them activities that they can engage in that are safe and that are healthy. And, you know, I grew up in the Northwest Territories. I know what it's like. In Hay River, there was a time there was no youth centre. You'd just walk around town. I mean, that's not necessarily the safest thing to do, especially these days with what we're seeing happening in the communities. So one of the changes that was made in the last government, I brought forward changes to our capital standards for schools. It used to be that if you had less than a certain number of students, you got no gym if you got a new school. Or if you had a certain small number of students, you might get a gym but it would be small. You wouldn't be able to really practice even half-court basketball in it. And so changes were made so that every new school in every community that is built will get a gym. The size of the gyms has also increased for the smaller communities. Because I've been to a number of the communities with the small gyms, and those just aren't adequate. They're not going to prepare students to -- you know, to go on to the Arctic Winter Games and things like that. So that's one major thing that we've already done.

There's been efforts to work with the DEAs in communities to ensure access to those gyms as well. Because it's the DEAs who do control the access, and so we want to work with them to ensure that those gyms can stay open after hours, on weekends if necessary.

A number of years ago, we also made change -- the 18th Assembly made changes to how funding is distributed to sports organizations. It's been a number of years now. I think it might be time to relook at that and ensure that that money is being used in the way we want it to be used and it is supporting the types of organizations you want it to support. There could perhaps be some more local and regional funding available. And this goes to our support for NGOs as well. We need to ensure that funding we do have, whether it's arts or sports, is accessible to NGOs and that it is stable as well, so we have multi-year funding. So there's a number of changes that we can and should make. Thank you.