I just want to again remind the House that there is an element of Cabinet confidentiality. If the Minister would like, he could respond. But I would like Members to keep that in mind. Mr. Allooloo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Because of Cabinet confidentiality, I would have to take the question as notice and reply to the Member appropriately.

Point of order, Mr. Patterson.

Point Of Order

Mr. Speaker, with respect to yourself and the principle of Cabinet secrecy -- which I do respect -- the matter was opened yesterday and raised in this Assembly by the Government Leader, herself. On page 45 of the unedited Hansard, she said in response to a question from Mr. Koe, "The decision and the option chosen was by the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs who sought the advice of Cabinet." In other words, she stated that the option chosen was the option recommended to Cabinet by the Minister. I think the issue has been opened by the Government Leader, herself. I would respectfully request that now that it is in the Assembly and the issue of what options were chosen by Cabinet has been discussed by the Government Leader herself, it is not inappropriate for me to ask the Minister whether there were other options presented. Thank you.

If I could respond to your point of order. Number one, you don't have a point of order. The Minister took the question as notice. A question can be taken as notice without any reason. Also, I want to remind Members that Ministers aren't obligated to answer questions if they choose not to answer questions. I just reminded Members that there is an element of Cabinet confidentiality and we should be aware of that. In this particular case, Mr. Patterson, you have no point of order. The question has been taken as notice. Item 6, oral questions. Mr. Lewis.

Ms. Cournoyea.

Mr. Speaker, yes.

Supplementary, Mr. Lewis.

Is it the policy of this government, then, on its major initiatives -- which should not be discussed in this House -- that bureaucrats are given the responsibility to make public statements and to inform the public? I thought that was our job in this House.

Madam Premier.

Mr. Speaker, because there was an opportunity given at another meeting to inform the ordinary Members and it was put off from that briefing session, I believe the information was not provided at that time. I would like to suggest that there was an opportunity where we wanted to give a full briefing on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Supplementary, Mr. Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's precisely the issue. There are so many things on our plate right now that we asked the Premier, specifically, could she delay this briefing because of that. What she has done then is, instead of delaying briefing ordinary Members as she had promised she would at the appropriate time, she has instead asked a senior bureaucrat to tell the public, rather than allow us to hear the story first.

Madam Premier.

Mr. Speaker, I don't believe that the briefing and the information to the general public was asked to be delayed. It was a briefing to the Members that was asked to be delayed. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister is this then. Does this mean that we no longer will be getting a briefing from the government because it has already been done through the public media?

Madam Premier.

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that this briefing is still scheduled whenever there is time to do that briefing.

That has concluded your supplementary questions, Mr. Lewis. Item 6, oral questions. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Government Leader. Since it was my understanding that this briefing would be delayed in regards to the work place commission, I was under the assumption -- and I guess I shouldn't assume, Mr. Speaker -- that the Government Leader would advise the MLAs accordingly before releasing details to the public. She is aware that she does need the support of the MLAs probably for financial funding for this commission. I know it is not in this year's O and M budget.

I would like to ask the Government Leader -- since she has taken the liberty of authorizing a senior civil servant to relay to the public the information on this work place commission -- would she advise us in this House today what is this work place commission? Thank you.

Madam Premier.

Mr. Speaker, although the briefing did not take place, the information was provided to all MLAs. Mr. Speaker, as we are all aware, over the last number of years with the many changes in government and the many issues that are rising in terms of labour and labour related issues -- whether it comes from decentralization, from having community transfers in place, the employees on reorganization -- the issue of how we're going to handle the adjustment in the work place has been one issue, whenever we make a decision within the government or on the effects of government. I think I can relate to some of the issues.

When we were discussing the major pipeline enquiry, there were a lot of concerns about how our northern workers are going to be handled. What is the role? What can we do? How can we move, in looking after people who are coming from smaller communities within the Northwest Territories to be involved in the work place? What types of protection? Is there protection? Are there ways of giving preferences to northern workers? We're doing a lot of things now that effect how people are employed, how people are going to be dealt with and how issues are going to be handled. How do we involve communities to get maximum benefits?

We have land claims. There are areas in the claims where there have to be priorities on certain areas of land that has to have the aboriginal group involved having priorities. There are so many of those issues that are in place. As new claims get settled, as well, as a government we have an obligation to respect those claims and the priorities and legislation that governs treatment and preferential treatment for the people. All these labour issues are out there. While we're trying to make our decision here, these issues continually come before us.

I know that in certain claims there are provisions and benefit agreements that we're seriously trying to address because we're involved with that. If we want something to go ahead, we have to respect the employment criteria out of those claims.

We have surface land, sub-surface land, town land, industry wanting to come into the north, the desire of northern people to be considered and trained for those employment opportunities. The preferences are inherent in some of the work we do. So, this is a major issue and this is an issue that has plagued us right from the very beginning of time, as we continue to try to live under the obligations of the many areas of special agreements.

The idea with this is to try to involve the general public organizations and people in trying to come to some conclusion how best we, as the Northwest Territories, can address those issues. This was put in place because up to this point in time, even the questions we get in the Legislative Assembly in terms of affirmative action and preference for small local businesses, we're dealing with the best we can.

However, the question on what is our stated policy, what is acceptable to the people of the Northwest Territories, is very important.

This is why we suggested a commission could be in place where people's views, ideas and, preferably, solutions to how we deal with the overall global issue of employment, including people's claims, and how our obligations are going to sit with them. Thank you.