Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand in support of this motion because I believe the Department of Health and Social Services has made mistakes, mistakes that have adversely affected all NWT residents and have cost this government dearly. The GNWT's credibility as the guardian of children has been severely questioned by our citizens, and public confidence in the administration of these programs and services is practically non-existent.
Fortunately, the first steps to remedying this mistake are easy. It is the steps we take after this motion that will be more challenging.
In our system of consensus government, it is not the department that is accountable for these mistakes; it is the Minister who stands responsible for the performance of the departments under his portfolio. This failure of the government to provide adequate protection to the children in its care is so serious and has been known for so long that someone must be held accountable for this. In our system of government, that person is the Minister responsible.
The subjects of the Auditor General's report are children, children under the care of the government. These children are already living in high-risk situations, which is why they are under care to begin with. Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker, yes, this motion is about holding the Minister responsible, but we must not lose sight of those who are directly affected. They are living, breathing children, and family members. They are the ones who are affected the most, not the Minister in question, not me, not any other Member of this House or public official in the Northwest Territories. This is about children. We must not forget that, as this motion arises from the mismanagement of the care of our children.
Our job as elected Members is to do more than ask questions and make statements. Our job is to take action to ensure that those with power in our society are held to account for their actions and the performance of the exercise of that power.
Moving forward, I want to remind Members of this House, as well as the public at large, that the last time a vote of non-confidence was successful in this legislature, it came because a Cabinet Minister made several disrespectful comments and followed them up with a threatening hand gesture. I worry that some Members might forget that those most affected by the inaction of a Minister, especially in the matter that we are speaking of right now, are not Members of this House and do not have the same privileges we do to hold a Minister to account, and youth at risks ought to have someone speaking up for them to address this systemic and long-standing crisis.
The questions and observations I encourage all Members to reflect upon as I go through the remainder of my statement are as follows: who is the Minister ultimately accountable to? This Assembly, the public, Cabinet, the Premier? Does or should the timing of the next election have any real bearing on the House's duty to hold the Minister to account? Should elections be the only time Members are truly held accountable? Has the Minister accepted that the buck stops with him? If not, who? In what circumstances does the buck stop getting passed around? Good intentions, Mr. Speaker, do not provide these children with any solace, nor does it work to make them safe or work to help ensure they are healthy and that their families are able to break the cycle borne out of some of the most; a reflection of the most terrible policies of colonization, residential schools.
I am disheartened at the state of our democracy if the best defense for the Minister responsible for this alarming failure of government is that he is a hard worker and he means well. Well, that sort of "better the devil you know" mentality is at the core of what is eroding responsible government.
Mr. Speaker, Cabinet has the right to design and implement policies, programs, and regulations. They aren't required to request the House's approval to do so, and aren't even required to share that with the Members of this side of the House if they don't wish to. Fortunately, most programs, policies, and regulation changes won't adversely affect residents of the NWT. Bringing them into the legislature approval debate isn't always going to be necessary. In fact, it could be considered a waste of time in many situations, Mr. Speaker. In this case, this is not one of those situations.
Yes, from time to time, these types of failures of management can be significant. It has major ramifications for the GNWT and the NWT as a whole. I believe that the moments of failures of management currently in question fall into this crisis category.
When assessing or reassessing policies, programs, and regulations that will have consequences for our people, Ministers ought to be expected to demonstrate a standard of care, which involves actively engaging Regular Members and other stakeholders who may be affected by this new information. It does not mean that the Minister should sit on the results of an internal audit for a period of months before they are brought forward for consideration by the rest of the House.
Mr. Speaker, the first time the Standing Committee on Social Development, which reviewed this file, was made aware of it was by press release shortly after the Auditor General's report came out. The severity of the situation was well-known internally to government and kept from those who are actively working together to make consensus government work on behalf of the residents of the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, for the government to meet its fiduciary obligations on behalf of Indigenous people to serve the interest of Dene, Inuvialuit, and Metis, as well as other peoples and residents of the Northwest Territories, a significant amount of information and facts are required in order for Regular Members to make responsible and informed decisions. The accessibility of information is required to plan and ensure that past mistakes are not repeated, perpetuated, shrugged off, or swept under the rug.
Unfortunately, it's clear that, in this case, the government felt more comfortable taking the easy route out, hoping that, as tradition and as status quo, this matter would be forgotten in a few weeks and all would be well, given enough time until the next election.
Does the committee and the Members of this House understand the ramifications of maintaining the status quo in a culture of inaction towards ministerial accountability? Do we fully comprehend the consequences and costs as we continue to fail to protect the health and safety of children in the GNWT's care?
Many Members of this Assembly, including myself, are fully aware of the uphill battle we engage in all too frequently with select Ministers, having to continually ask for open dialogue and forthcoming information on files with such potentially sweeping and long-term consequences.
I ask: does the Minister in question believe the children in his department's care are well-served by the laissez-faire attitude which has plagued this file from Assembly to Assembly? How much will it cost the NWT when these children become adults? To them and to their communities, to the GNWT, and to all people of the Northwest Territories?
Does the Minister comprehend the scale of this repetition of failures and the echoes of a dark chapter of our shared history? The terror and neglect faced by Indigenous people to the policies of colonization in residential schools? In fact, we have another Minister who won't accept personal responsibilities or even apologize to the people of the Northwest Territories for these systemic and unacceptable issues that have occurred under his mandate. I don't believe the plans were actioned with the care and attention they needed and deserved.
How can we as Members and how can members of the public feel confident that this government has demonstrated a reasonable standard of care or due diligence if the Minister can't answer these types of important questions when they are put to him before the House? Or at least return with a complete and uncensored information to the House in a timely fashion and to the Members of this House, who are working on behalf of their constituents?
Mr. Speaker, here is what should have happened. It's clear this government needs to do something to help the children in its care. It's clear this is not an easy file with a simple solution. It's clear these problems continue to reoccur. It's clear that the Minister should have consulted with all Members of the House and given a thorough and complete report on the matter. A secret, unrecorded meeting would have been better than a press release. Again, I ask how this public institution, this democratic institution, can properly function if those outside Cabinet are kept in the dark?
The department has researched this issue. The Office of the Auditor General has audited this issue twice, Mr. Speaker. The Child Welfare League of Canada in the year 2000 recommended the department develop a caseload study, which is still incomplete. Again, in 2014, the same Child Welfare League was commissioned to do a workload management study to help identify what resources were required to deliver Child and Family Services. The Minister has had five years to act on these recommendations, but now they have a plan.
Mr. Speaker, too little too late. If the information had been shared openly with MLAs and affected children actually contacted and effectively followed up by the GNWT, then this Assembly might have been willing to find innovative solutions to this perpetual cycle of abuse and the failure to our minors. The Standing Committee on Social Development could have followed the footsteps of its predecessor committee from the 16th Assembly and reviewed Child and Family Services to work with the Minister on bringing meaningful solutions to these persistent failures to protect children in the government's care. Instead, the department compromised the best interests of children under its care due to limited resources, outdated legislation, and poorly implemented management tools.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister must be responsible, for there is no one else who can be. Rest assured that the credibility of this government in the eyes of the public are fed up when they hear another instance where government-sanctioned institutions failed to meet the basic rights of Indigenous children. The Minister did not prepare a comprehensive brief and consultation with Regular Members, neither when the department conducted its internal audit from five years ago, nor in 2018 with the most recent OAG audit has been made public.
The failure of this case, the failure of Health and Safety deserves to be shamed, and that is without question.
Mr. Speaker, it's clear from the impassionate and emotional responses from a member of the public that this is not a situation that can be seen as a mere complicated situation that requires complex solutions and limited resources. There needs to be more done, especially considering the nature of this issue coming forward again under the same Minister's watch, a Minister who is widely seen as very hard working, as very confident in his portfolios and has personal and intimate knowledge of this file.
That is what brings us here today. There is outrage from the citizens in the Northwest Territories that these problems persist and there seems to be no way forward. In fact, things are worse today. We must take action to hold the government to account so the message is set clear to the entire system of the GNWT that, when failures of this magnitude continue to go unchecked, there are political consequences to the people at the top. That should encourage everyone, every one of us, to work diligently to ensure that they never happen again, that they are not swept under the rug, and a culture of silence does not persist around those who are most vulnerable in the government's care. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.