Thank you. So this is an issue that has come up time and time again for years. And as we're seeing more drugs in communities and more housing units being used as the base for selling those drugs, there's action that needs to be taken. And I'm very familiar with this situation as this is occurring in my community. There's a number of things that can be done. You know, the RCMP do what they can. They've had a number of their tools taken away over the years by changes to the Criminal Code or by decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. And so I put thought into what can we do as a territorial government to give them more tools or to give communities more tools as well, it doesn't just have to be the RCMP. So some of those things are things like the SCAN legislation, safer communities and neighbourhoods, which allows, after an investigation, for a premise to be shut down. So we're not going through the eviction process. We're shutting down a building that is causing a public harm. So that's one option. There are also changes that can be made to the housing policies. I often hear concerns that there's been, you know, half a dozen eviction orders issued by the rental officer for a building that is a known drug house, but it's not acted upon until the seventh eviction order. And so we need to figure out what are we going to prioritize here. We don't want to make people homeless, but we can't put up with certain types of behaviour, and that's one of the types of behaviour that we can't put up with. So there are things that can be done, simple changes to our policies as well as additional legislation. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Member for the question. Public safety, as I said before, is paramount, and I think a lot of people in the Northwest Territories are feeling unsafe in their home communities right now. And that has to change. And for me that's an important priority for the next government but it is something that we all have to decide on how to move forward with that. We have to balance personal liberties and a humane way to treat people with the need for enhanced public safety, and that's a fine balance we have to strike when we roll out new legislation, especially around things that can take people out of their home. But I think we need to start with the Residential Tenancies Act. It hasn't been updated in a very long time. It's unclear where the rights and responsibilities of tenants lie, and far too much is left up to the rental officer to make decisions, which means we're depending on one individual to deal with a lot of these cases. And I think we can find some -- there's a whole bunch of areas that we need to change in the RTA anyways and that's a good place to start with that. We've heard the need for trespassing legislation from municipalities, from Members of this own House. That's something I support, and I think we need to move forward on. And, you know, we need to use our existing resources. We have a policing services agreement with the RCMP. We kind of leave it alone and don't give a lot of direction to the RCMP through that, and I think that needs to change. We need to have some service standards that are set up so we can actually direct the RCMP on the kind of results our communities are looking for. And we also have territorial sheriffs who are peace officers who could be empowered to do more work in our communities as well. So if the RCMP can't do it, we could be funding bylaw, we could be enhancing the powers of the sheriffs office. These are all options available to us on the table. So we have a way -- a path forward to solve these -- to create safer communities. And I think that starts by creating a department of public safety and emergency preparedness that can develop these options for this Assembly, and we can make informed decisions that are evidenced based and we'll get the best results for our communities and make people feel safe in their own homes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I was also going to mention that there's tools such as SCAN legislation available that puts what would normally be a much higher standard of probability down into one that is a balance of probability and allows the process of eviction for someone who is suspected of drug dealing to proceed more expeditiously, look also at our landlord and tenant office, the speed by which people are able to seek an eviction for illegal or suspected illegal activities on their land and whether or not that process can itself be made more easily accessible to landlords. But also then on the other side with respect to community safety, a couple of important things.

We right now have community policing priorities which four years ago really were not particularly engaged. It was something that was set and communicated at an official's level but not necessarily one that was really involving the community. I think this is an opportunity to involve communities at the front lines about what their priorities are for the police for enforcement activities in their communities but also then to have them follow through upon, so ensuring that once we have those community police priorities, that they're made public, that people know them, and that the RCMP have an opportunity to say how they will achieve them, how they can achieve them, and how the community can be involved in seeing them achieved. What do they need, what can be done, and what role can the community play in terms of achieving those community police priorities.

On that note, there is the community policing pilot that's been taking place in Fort Liard. This is an opportunity to involve community level -- community level individuals, not so much as an enforcement role but as a role to be involved in defusing situations, to be involved in situations early on, to have a better handle of what's happening within a community. And it's an opportunity to look at what has worked within that pilot and what can we do to actually make it even more successful and hopefully expand it to more communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, healthy and constructive conflict is an essential component of consensus government. When guided in the right direction, it can strengthen both decision-making and relationships. How do you, how do the Premier candidates view the Premier's role in building capacity for constructive conflict in the Legislative Assembly and their role in managing conflict when it arises?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Member for the question. I am no stranger to conflict in this House as I'm sure anyone who's been following me knows, but I have always approached it, you know, what you bring to the table -- or what you bring to the floor to represent the interests of your constituents or the interests that have been agreed upon by government and then the personal conflicts that can get out of hand. And I don't want to see any personal conflicts in this Assembly. You know, I want to see us all pulling together as one team that moves forward into the future with a clear mandate for our government and clear priorities for our constituents. So I think there's already a number of tools that are built into our conventions that have been tried and tested over the years. There's fireside chats which allow Members of the Assembly, Regular Members of the Assembly, to pull the Premier aside and say here are some concerns we have that we'd like you to address. I think there needs to be a strong relationship between the chair of the accountability and oversight committee and the Premier. The chair should be seen as the political leader of the Regular Members, and just as the Premier is a political leader of the territory, and they should be working together to figure out where those pressure points are and where we can move forward. And fundamentally, people have to have a thick skin. You know, you're going to get criticized if you're a Cabinet Minister. That just comes with the territory. And we need to know that it's not personal and know the difference and the line between that, and I think the Premier can be a good coach for that because oftentimes the Premier is not responsible for the service delivery that's going to be the number one concern of constituents. You know, the health Minister is or the housing Minister is. So the Premier can be a good quarterback for the Cabinet and make sure the Cabinet is feeling supported and knows that it's not personal; it's just part of the territory. And I think that's a really important tone to set here, and I think regular communication with the Regular Members is crucial. And that's why I also propose using caucus more fully to discuss these things where our hats are left on the door, and we can come to terms with where we find those pressure points. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, one of the big things I think the Premier's office can embody is having better trust in our leadership. We're only going to have that trust if we build that trust, if we take the time to build that trust. And that means communication, doing what we say we're going to do and when we can't do it -- because you cannot possibly do everything that is asked within a political role -- to explain when you cannot, being able to come forward and have the willingness to come forward and explain when something can't be done or when it can't be done the way that a Member is looking for it to happen but always leaving that door open that maybe there's a way to compromise going forward. And so that, in my view, would help build that trust in our leadership which can help defuse a conflict rather than simply saying no.

With respect to the communication, in my view again, Premier, as well as Ministers, need to appear more regularly in front of committees with their deputies alongside them and prepared to answer questions, so we're not updating one another only on the floor of this House but we're doing it within the committee processes, whether it's a briefing that's offered, whether it's on a bill, whether it's part of our budget session, our business planning process, but more often than just waiting until the business planning.

When I was appearing more and more regularly as a result of my role in Department of Finance, I saw the relationships build over the course of time even when I was there to deliver bad news. The fact that I was there to actually deliver that news and engage helped build, I think, trust and understanding on both sides.

Premier can certainly lead Cabinet in terms of expectation and having that expectation that Ministers are there in front of the Regular Members and in front of committees with their deputies is an important thing -- important piece of leadership in my mind.

And last, but by far not least, would be more leadership training. We come in here, and we're elected here because our communities saw something in all of us, and every one of us, that led them to believe that we could be here to represent them and to advocate for them, but that doesn't necessarily translate to being to knowing what to do in terms of how to do that. And I think there should be ongoing leadership training and coaching throughout the life of the Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the last government, we did see a lot of conflict. I wouldn't call a lot of it constructive conflict. It was just conflict, and it had negative implications. So the best way to deal with that is to -- is preemptively and avoid conflict where possible. You know, we do have a number of returning Members now. We have more capacity, I think, going into this government than we did in the last. We only had one returning Minister and a couple returning MLAs in Cabinet. And so I think there was a -- there could have been more mentorship had we had more experience in Cabinet. So I think mentorship of Ministers is a very important aspect of helping them avoid conflict and deal with conflict if it arises. I think that we also need to acknowledge the role of the Regular Members committee. It was called AOC in the last government. You know, that committee also needs to ensure their Members are getting along to the greatest extent possible. And so there needs to be rational voices in there. We also need to work with the Speaker. What happens on the floor of this House, it can sometimes lead to conflicts outside of this House. You know, I've had good exchanges back and forth as a regular Member with Ministers, and we're still friends afterwards. That's not always the case. And so if we're in this House and there are comments that are out of order and the reason certain things have been ruled out of order is because they create conflict, they create negative feelings, we need the Speaker to deal with those. And I have full confidence that that's going to happen. So I think there are, you know, a number of ways to help build our relationships, and some of those have been discussed. Regular meetings between the Regular Members and Cabinet and dealing with things early on as well. If there is a conflict that arises, we can't just let it go and go and go until it's boiling over. We need to deal with it. And it's not always fun, but it's -- you know, these jobs aren't always fun either, and so it's incumbent upon us to deal with things as they arise and not let them fester. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Northwest Territories Power Corporation is designated as an entity that is at arm's length from government, and a number of years ago the board of directors was replaced with six deputy ministers. As we move forward and you being potential Premiers of the Northwest Territories, what would be in your plan to address the issue of the board of directors with the NWT Power Corp and putting the control of that board back into the hands of the citizens of the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Northwest Territories Power Corporation right now certainly is run in a way that people feel disconnected from it and feel that it's not responding to their needs. It comes back to the bigger picture of people being unheard or feeling unheard. And, really, with the power corporation cycles back into the fact that we have extremely high rates of power and seemingly unable to catch up with that reality. I think we want to look -- in my mind, I want to look at what the actual problem here is. And that problem is the fact that we can't get a handle on our electricity use and the costs and the lack of alternatives here. So I'd like to first of all go back to the power corporation and ask them what they are doing to solve this problem. I know that one thing for certain is that if we can't get more commercial consumers for power, then we will never see meaningful movement in terms of our residential cost use because we don't have the cost -- we don't have the consumer base. If there was more consumers from an industrial perspective or from the industrial side, that will bring the cost of power down for everybody. So what do we need to do to do that? Right now, industry is looking for greener alternatives, for alternative energies. Most consumers are aware of the need for this. And obviously diesel is very expensive. What is their plan to make sure that we are bringing about having more high needs consumers to bring down the cost of power? What is the plan, then, to take these new forms of power, whether it's renewables, whether it's Taltson, whether it's micro grids in small communities, and make sure it's disseminated into people's homes? What is the plan to connect people into that, and what is the plan to update our infrastructure? These are huge questions. And the question that I want to make sure is that we have a plan to address every single one of those questions, that it's timed out, that we understand what opportunities are for Indigenous governments to have an equity stake in it, and that we get moving on finding those solutions. Thank you.

Thank you. So the question was about the governance of the power corporation. Right now there is a board of deputy ministers and, you know, there's been much discussion about whether this is the appropriate way to go or whether it should be a fully public board. What we need to consider is the fact that, you know, the power corporation, they're there to keep the lights on. They're there to generate power. Sometimes it costs a lot more to generate power than we would like. And there's instances where the Government of the Northwest Territories has to chip in 10 or 20 or $30 million to keep those rates down. So there needs to be some level of accountability to the government if that's what's happening. And if an independent board comes and asks for $30 million, there's going to be a lot of questions. And so having some sort of insight and line of -- some sort of connection into that board I think is still important. There's obviously, though, a public desire to have public representation on a board. So there are options for some sort of a hybrid situation, but I don't think that we can just stand back and say okay, power corp, you go ahead and do your thing. It's too important, it's too fundamental to our territory to not have that level of accountability at a government level. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for the question. When this decision was made, it was in, I believe, the 18th Assembly because I remember speaking to it often, and the decision to put public servants in charge and also to bail out the power corporation to the degree where it essentially has become a Crown corporation or public corporation in name only, it still doesn't change the fact it is a public corporation. And this is not a question of energy policy. This is not a question of infrastructure. This is a question of how we govern our public agencies and our Crown corporations. And we are not doing it right. Crown corporations need to have independence. They need to be arm lengths of government, and they need an independent board. All the guidance that is given through the federal treasury board, through various provincial treasury boards, through industry standards, says this. This is not a way to run a public corporation, and I don't support what that -- I don't support the continuation of this decision. It was supposed to be short term, and it's now de facto, and that definitely needs to change. I'm sympathetic with the speaker -- with the previous speaker's last point around the government holding the reins a little bit. And we can still do that. The board's appointed by the Minister. It's not an election, right. So we have the opportunity to work with that board, to put the right people in place who are going to drive competitiveness, who are going to drive innovation, and who are going to drive efficiency. And if we expect a cadre of deputy ministers to do that, I think we're going to find -- we're not going to find the results we're looking for. This needs to be run like a corporation and not run like a department. And how we are running it is not following best practices. And if Premier, I will change that and return it to a public board while we determine the long-term future of our electricity system in the Northwest Territories working in collaboration with all Members. But this is a matter of governance, not power. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. My next question is with respect to the systemic challenges many of our municipal governments are facing, specifically with respect to their access to land and them being underfunded. As Premier candidates, I'm sure this won't be new to you so I will ask you specifically if you're elected as our Premier, will you put in the departmental mandate letters to the Ministers responsible specifically the direction to close the municipal gaps with respect to effective funding and the transfer of land that have been identified, such as Commissioner's lands, without delay and so that we can empower our municipalities and to service our constituents, which we share, much better? Thank you.