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.