Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, there is frustration from the southern part of the territory, right to the northern part of the territory, and as well, Mr. Speaker, probably, between the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada as well, too, when it comes to taking children and care out of the territory. Like Jordan's Principle, we have a federal government and we have the territorial government, but whatever government it may be, it might be a self-government, I'm fighting over who is going to pay the bill for the children while those children suffer and struggle in hospitals and in care around the country.
Mr. Speaker, that is something that we need to work on with the federal government. That is something within the territory that we don't have that much control over, but the Minister and his staff and the department have control over maybe working out with the federal government. The Premier has that power as well, too.
Mr. Speaker, Jordan's Principle is something that affects all of us, being in a territory where the majority of the people are Indigenous people, eight different languages and so forth. It is loud and clear that our needs for ourselves, our children, and the rate of suicides, and the rate of homicides in the territory are rising. I think we need to take a look as to why these are all happening, and how can we work that out to help the cause so that our people live a better quality of life. Mr. Speaker, we are missing all of those pieces in this big system we call the Health and Social Services.
Like some of my colleagues, I believe the system is too massive for one Minister to take on alone. I think, as earlier mentioned, some Ministers take on too much of a workload that they cannot focus, and one of my colleagues mentioned that some Regular MLAs know more about some of the policies than actual the Ministers do in their departments. We are willing to change that. That's true, Mr. Speaker. I get answers from Ministers, "Oh, my god. Geez, I could have asked myself that last week and come up with a better answer." I'm not pointing fingers. I'm just saying that in the reality, in the workplace that we work right here, it's true. Some of us are charged with looking at things that we are passionate about. We don't know everything, but the things that we are passionate about, we can take on and make a difference that way. I think that's how we need to kind of focus and realign our strengths as we move forward.
Mr. Speaker, we need to unify and demand a systemic change internally within the Legislative Assembly, because right now it is not working. It might be working for the departments. It might be working for departmental staff, but it's not serving the people of the Northwest Territories, and those are the children in care that we are talking about right now, Mr. Speaker. There is too much red tape in management and the policies. I remember hearing that some time ago when issues came up, there were more policies put in place, and that is just more jargon and more hoops for people who need to jump through. In a sense, it affects the government's bottom line because, at the end of the day, they're not spending as much but they're keeping up with what they can. For me, that's a lack of capacity, Mr. Speaker.
If we struggle from a lack of capacity, we need to find it elsewhere. We need to ensure that we give the Minister and the Premier and our staff and ourselves the right tools to do that, and I think we're not doing that right now. We might be on our way to doing it but, Mr. Speaker, I think we have a long way to go. It's definitely going to pass this Assembly, like we pass the next Assembly until we get a handle on things, but we need to start moving faster. Every day, I believe I heard that every day or 24 hours, there's $1.3 million spent on help in the Northwest Territories, and we look at our population, Mr. Speaker: is that enough, or do we need to increase that? Or do we need to aim our dollars better to ensure that it's going to the right people? Right now, we're caught up on salaries, and the system, I believe, and I've said this in the past, it's more suited to work around the healthcare professionals rather than the people who actually need the healthcare at times. Mr. Speaker, I encourage that within this arena right here.
Mr. Speaker, I come from an organization in the Inuvialuit Region. We are working on self-government. We are working with the departments to build capacity within everything that we do as Inuvialuit, and I'm sure other Indigenous governments are doing that across the territory. I think we need to utilize this time to revamp how things are working for our children, and use our next leadership forum, and invite the Indigenous leaders around the territory to help us develop the mandate for the next government of the Northwest Territories, because right now, it's not working. We are overloaded with mandate items that each and every one of us bring back from our regions, but how do we make those work together? It's not one size fits all. It needs to be specific for each region.
Mr. Speaker, my question is to myself. I'm sitting here listening to everything. Will a new Minister take over the current Minister's priorities as they move forward? Recently, we had a Cabinet shuffle and, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that no, they didn't, actually. When certain Ministers swapped portfolios, they didn't take over the priorities of the current Minister or the government that set it in place, which is this arena right here. To me, that's an issue. We need to focus on that. We need to ensure that, when we do changes like this, whether it is a Cabinet shuffle or something within the department, I think we all need to work together on. That is where we get lost.
Sometimes, when we get lost, everything falls through the cracks and usually it's the children who are in care, you know. It's our friends and relatives who are in custody, or even elders who are in elders' homes right now, where in the Northwest Territories, some regions don't have the capacity to house elders who need the care.
Mr. Speaker, the moral of my story is, as such a massive department, what we need to do here is look at how we can improve it. Like what I said earlier, the leadership from my region came to my office this afternoon. We talked and they asked me to work with this Minister. There was a time when I was upset because I felt that, you know, after reading the report and looking at some of the items and some of the things that have come out of it, it is frustrating. How do we work with the Minister so that he can work with us? It's not that, Mr. Speaker. It's that we need to work together regardless of if we want to or not.
This past couple of weeks during this session has been a long one. It has been a tough one, but today, you know, I'm not going to support the motion, Mr. Speaker, because I do believe that we need to work together. There is so much to do within this year until next fall that we have to put our heads together, Mr. Speaker. This is more like a whipping for somebody to say, "Hey, you know what? You need to work with us." That, to me, that is exactly what that is today. I believe that is what we need to do.
Otherwise, if we don't do that, shame on all of us here, you know. We see these two Ministers who have been put on the spotlight today, or for the past few days. I think what we need to do is help the both of them, so they can help all the regions in the Northwest Territories. However we get there, Mr. Speaker, whatever it takes, however we get there, let's do what we need to.
Mr. Speaker, I won't support this motion today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.