Thank you, Mr. Chair. In previous Assemblies, Regular MLAs have often raised concern about being left out of Cabinet decision-making, finding out at the same time as the public about announcements, and raising that as a concern. So will you commit to the principle of no surprises between the Executive and Regular MLAs, and what will you do to ensure Regular MLAs have input into Cabinet decision-making with the goal of better adherence to the principles of consensus government?

Thank you. You know, a lot of those concerns I believe we actually addressed in the last Assembly. I was a Regular Member in the 18th Assembly, and I was as frustrated as anyone when I would hear about something through the news. And so I took great pains in the last government to ensure that we were working with Regular Members the way that I wanted to be worked with when I was a Regular Member. It's not always easy. Sometimes, you know, I'll learn of something being publicly announced moments before it is and I'll do my best to fire off emails to all of the Members. Sometimes you don't quite get it, but there's definitely an effort put into that. And my office has learned a lot about how to do this and how to work with the Members. And I want to take those lessons that I've implemented and implement them across Cabinet. So ensure there are structures in place that will ensure that that happens and that, you know, Ministers' offices are supported to better work with the Regular Members. And there's a number of opportunities for the Members to work with Cabinet. We have countless meetings with the Members. We sit in this House, and we hear concerns from Members. I can assure everyone that all of that is absorbed and feeds into any decision-making that we have. There's always opportunities to do more. When I got onto Cabinet, I took what the issues I saw, and I addressed them. We're going to -- there's going to be more Members -- there are returning Members in this House as well. I want to hear what they thought worked well. And if we can address those issues address those as well. Speak with the new Members and see what they think we need to do and address those as well. So there are plenty of opportunities to do this. And it's imperative that we do it because, of course, we're a minority government; we all have to work together. And I have a good feeling about this group. I think we can do that, and I look forward to doing it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Member for the question. And, you know, I too think this is a great group of MLAs. I think we can accomplish a lot together, but we have to keep working together. And, you know, tension happens. Tension happens in any kind of environment like this, and that's why structural changes are important to me. I think it's easy to say we'll just have good relationships and good relationships are the way forward. Of course they are. But what happens when you don't, right? And I think a change like having associate Ministers, which allow the chairs of standing committee to peek in behind the curtain and be part of governance, observe government decision-making, be able to ask informed questions, and then transmit that back to standing committees and Regular Members, will create a more cohesive government structure. So even though the Cabinet will still be a minority for all intents and purposes, there will be that bridge between the two sides. And those divisions are -- exists operationally, and they don't just go away because you have good relations. We work on different sides; we work doing different jobs. This will allow those jobs to come together in a meaningful way.

The other thing I think we need to take advantage of is caucus. I think the caucus is a place where you leave your hat at the door, all Members are equal, and everyone is free to speak on the issues that are important to them and free to speak frankly and candidly with decision-makers. And I think those opportunities are so important to building trust and building results that are going to move the territory forward. So I'd like to use caucus as more than an avenue to do, you know, administrative work for the Legislative Assembly and prepare us for session but also prepare us for political decision-making that needs to happen. And I think a good example of this is the meeting that we had as a caucus with the Indigenous nations and their leadership. We can continue doing that as equals throughout this term and find other ways to do that as well so we're not speaking as two different sides. We're coming together on those important issues and working together. And when -- and building a new structure, an evolution of consensus government that gives the Regular Members a place at the -- on the Cabinet side. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I again would like to continue on as I had already started and which is to say a lot of what I've done in the last four years is something that I was doing intuitively but would like to actually see now put into place more formally. For example, the Fiscal Responsibility Policy and the Affirmative Action Policy, both are internal GNWT policy documents but we made it -- it was clear to us that in a consensus system, those types of reviews should actually go to Members for their input separately and independently so that we could actually incorporate their feedback at the front end, not just say here, we've done a review, and we have a new policy. And the feedback that I received from Members was significant in terms of improving the process of what was happening with that.

The budget process, of course I know I have spoken too many times, but it has evolved significantly over the last four years. It started off where there was a very formal letter exchange, but it evolved to a place where I was in front of committee, along with senior members of my team, on a regular basis. The conversations became more engaged. They became more involved. We were able to have dialogue that lasted throughout a budget Assembly -- a budget session, to reach an end point where the changes that were being made to the main estimates were reflective of priorities of the Assembly, not simply one by one but truly reflective of all of our priorities. So I'd like to look for ways that we could implement types of processes like that across all Ministers' offices.

So, for instance, what types of policy reviews do we have coming, what level of engagement should we be seeking, what is the schedule of review so that members of the Legislative Assembly know what's coming to them and then they can decide what level of involvement they may want. It certainly has come to me -- departments often make offers for technical briefings but are not necessarily always responded to by Members. So what barriers are there on their side so that Members can be involved when they want to be? Perhaps Members have individual interests, and they can sit down independently. Perhaps it's for committee. But there's ways to improve these pathways of communication meaningfully for all. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. And thank you for the question. It's an important question, and I think we need to solve this divide once and for all and give regions and small communities the ability to make decisions for themselves that are meaningful and impactful. And that starts at all levels, not just in terms of building relationships with local authorities and Indigenous governments but also within the public service itself so that regions have the autonomy to operate within a framework that's established by central agencies and headquarters, right. But regions need to be empowered to make those decisions, and I think we also need to think about giving regions back human resourcing so it's not centralized in one department but is there local so the human resource officers know their -- like, know who's being hired, know their employees, and can service them directly, so you're not waiting for Yellowknife or Inuvik to answer all your concerns. And regional directors will help this as well. Having a strong regional director that reports to the Premier is going to be able to see all the different parts of the machinery of government in that local region and how they're connecting and how they're not connecting, and then those decisions can be brought forward and fixed at the center and flow down to the regions as well. But this is not a -- this is a problem that's been growing over time, and the answer has always been kind of more top down thinking, and I think we need to go back to basics and start where it matters most, which is in the regions, and build up. And, I mean, by -- my dad's told me about this for years. He's worked in small communities his whole life. He's talked about how MACA has changed substantially, which is why I think we need to brief -- fundamentally rethink MACA and do away with that centralized department and really take as many functions as we can and give them locally and give back to local autonomy within the public service as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have all, I think, spoken to this, and certainly I have today already, the idea that we must get to a place where we have regional directors, that they are in place, and that there's succession planning so there's no gaps in those service opportunities and superintendents within every department, again making sure that they are staffed and making sure that we have succession planning in place, again so that there's no gaps. They should be meeting directly with the Premier's office as well as with their respective ministries. But then on the ground within those offices, and even further down to the front lines of delivering our services, we need to get to a place where we are actually offering person-centered services; person-centered services that are responding to the needs of our residents as they are coming forward to the government, and how can we do that in the best way? Obviously, in my mind, it's having that ability to make a decision at the front line that is meaningful to the person coming forward for the service.

To better empower the public service to do that, there are some simple things that I think can be done throughout departments and can come from the top down to empower people at the front lines, having an understanding of conflicts. One of the concerns that comes up as well, if there's decisions being made in small communities, that they can be subject to concerns of there being too many conflicts in a small community. That doesn't have to be the case if it's clear that there's a matricis that shows here's what is conflict says, here's how you declare a conflict, and here's who you might go to in our office if you have a conflict. The public should know what decisions can be made. It should be clear what the decisions are that's available within a community office and what are the basis for the decision, what are the parameters within which someone can exercise discretion. So it doesn't have to be a box checking exercise. There can be discretion that is exercised. But discretion can come with parameters so everyone still knows what it is that's at issue, how to have that decision made and how to represent themselves, and the timelines for those decisions need to be public as well. When things go wrong, there can be appeals that are made, and that too can be public, and that will provide better opportunities within the regions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I hear these complaints on a regular basis. You know, I'm from the region. I hear about decisions that are made by people in the capital, well-meaning people I'm sure, but who don't have an understanding of what's happening on the ground. And sometimes it's contrary to what you might consider common sense. If you don't have an understanding of the situation, the resources available, the people involved, how can you make a decision in the best interests of the actual resident? So there's a number of things we can do to enhance regional decision-making. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The GNWT has had regional decision-making at times in the past, and we can go back to what has worked. There's regional directors, as mentioned multiple times today, and I think those positions are imperative. We need to actually know -- as leaders, we need to know what's happening in the region. And I do lean on my colleagues as well to hear what is going on in their communities. And there's certain areas that we can even -- that we can focus on. You know, health programming is one. The needs of, you know, perhaps the community of Fort Smith and the community of Inuvik might be different in terms of health programming. So we need that ability to have localized services delivered in the manner that's appropriate for those residents.

We also need to focus on capacity building. It's often the case that there might just be no one in the community with the qualifications to do a certain job and so it defaults back to headquarters. So we need to ensure that when we have those people, we are working with them to build their capacity and to mentor people to take over in the future. I have a number of instances in my own community where I see situations where someone should be mentoring someone because we know this person is going to retire and there's no one to fill that position. And that happens across government in all the regions, and we need to ensure that we have the people on the ground with the ability and the qualifications and the backgrounds and the confidence to make those decisions. And once again, I've said it many times, we need to focus on giving front line staff the flexibility to serve the residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So you've all heard my speech when I was running for Premier, my speech reply to the Commissioner's address. NWTHSSA was a creation in the 18th Assembly, and it was supposed to make health and social services better for the residents of the Northwest Territories. It started with a deficit. It's now over $240 million. We still have problems with our healthcare. We still have problems with our medical travel. We still have travel with medivacs. In the last two months, I had a constituent pass away because of medivacs, 12, 14 hours waiting for a medivac plane.

So as Premier-elects, or people that are running for Premier, how are you going to fix this? This is a fundamental issue. We're not just talking about health but we're talking health and social services. So how are you going to fix this? And I apologize to the three candidates, I didn't give you the questions in advance because I didn't make my decision until 8:55 what I was going to do with my life, so there's my question. I'll have the second one later on. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have also been living the challenges of the authority system for the last four years. The Department of Finance obviously looks closely at what's happening in terms of our budgeting. We carry the budget -- or we carried the deficit, rather, for the authority, but we are also deeply involved in terms of human resources and what's happening. And the authority consistently, sadly, comes in at the bottom of our employee engagement and satisfaction survey. They are the frontline people who are supposed to be keeping our people healthy, and those workplaces are not healthy themselves. Just to put a finer point on it, this is a situation where there is almost one-third of our operating budget going into health. We add $50 million or more into supplementary appropriations, we run a deficit, and it is still not working. We simply -- one thing I will say is we simply cannot continue as we are going on.

The challenge we have right now is the legislative structure makes it so that the NTHSSA does not report to the Minister of health, does not report to the Premier. The CEO reports in to the chair of the wellness leadership council. So we need to, I would suggest, take a look or have the department take a look if that piece of legislation is, in fact, allowing us to accomplish the kind of accountability that we need in our health care system or not or if, in fact, it's time to take another look and see some change in how we structure the accountability within the authority. But in the meantime, I would suggest there's a critical time to work with the wellness council and leadership council and look at all of the thing we know that need doing, whether that's in the human resources sector and the many reports that have come out about how to improve the wellness of our health care providers so that they can better provide services, whether it's to look at the NHIB funding, which is woefully underfunded by the federal government. That also cannot be allowed to continue. We must find a way, immediately, with leadership from across the Northwest Territories to go forward and start to fix some of those problems. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And the member mentioned that it's a fundamental issue. We're talking about public safety. At the bare minimum, the government needs to provide a safe and secure environment for people. When we don't have confidence that we'll have physicians in our communities, that a medivac will arrive, people don't feel safe. We're not fulfilling our duties. And so I agree that changes need to be made. We are -- I've said before I believe the government is stretched too thin. We're trying to do too many things, and I see that in the health care sector as well. We'll often take money from the federal government for health for their pet project that they want to implement, and then once that money runs out we'll just keep funding those positions, that program. We need to take a critical look at what we're delivering and what we want to deliver and what we want to focus on and then we actually need to focus on that. We can't continue to just add more health care positions when we don't have the staff to fill the positions that we have now. We create a new position. We're poaching staff from somewhere else within the health care sector. So what we're doing is not working. There's questions about the governing structure. I think those questions are happening across Canada. There's discussions happening nationally about health authorities versus other ways of doing things, and we see what's happening in Alberta, and I think we owe it to our residents to engage in those discussions here as well. We need to ensure that there is accountability and that when a Member in a region brings forward a concern, there's someone to answer for that concern. And I'm not sure right now if the structure we have in place really gives us that opportunity. So as I've said, fundamental issue, and very -- something that the next Cabinet really needs to dig down into, and I think I've heard consensus from everyone who's answered so far that that's the case. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Member. And no one -- no lives should be lost because of those kinds of gaps in the health care system. And my heart goes out to his community for that. And I think that's -- that should be the message we take from that concern, is that there's a real human cost to when our health system isn't working. It's not just delays and costs but there's an impact on the lives of our residents. And that's why it's so important to get this right. And I think -- I don't think we need to study the issue very hard. We know it's not working. We know there's not enough accountability and transparency in the system that's been set up, and that needs to change. And that means a legislative review, legislative changes, and they need to happen swiftly because the longer we wait, the more money that's going to be -- that's going to be hemorrhaged by a system that isn't working. And the solution is always seemingly has been to say give more money to provide health services but with no accountability on that money, how that money's being spent, we don't actually know if it's getting the best results for patients and is being used to the most efficient way possible. So I would like to see that.

I would like to see us -- the new health Minister have that specifically in their mandate, to go forth and use their departmental resources to do a full redesign of the authority and how we provide health care services in the Northwest Territories. I think we also need to be flexible and consider whether or not do we need to split the departments, which is something the Member also raised in his speech, into social services and perhaps attached income support and some other programs, and then health as a standalone because it's such an important portfolio to our residents and there are so many challenges. Having a focused look at that is really essential. So I think we need to look at how we can change our own leadership as an Assembly around the health file and around how it's operating on the ground. Something needs to be done, and it needs to be a priority for the next Minister and for the next Assembly. Thank you.