Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe this Assembly needs to take drastic steps to become a more open and transparent and digital government. I would like to thank the last Assembly for all their work on the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I believe that ATIPP Act is truly one of the best in the country, yet it is still not in force and, during this pandemic, I have heard no shortage of complaints from both media and the public that not enough information and data is available.

Mr. Speaker, the Information and Privacy Commissioner presented her annual report to the Standing Committee on Government Operations this week. She acknowledges that the new ATIPP Act is great but is concerned that not one single GNWT department is capable of implementing it.

I believe there is a culture across the GNWT of using ATIPP as a shield, whereas, when media makes a request, they say, "Go through ATIPP," as a way to defer the story. The Information and Privacy Commissioner said proactive disclosure would lower her office's workload by as much as 50 percent; similarly for departments, as well. However, there are many steps to getting to proactive disclosure. The first and most important is proper records management, and, Mr. Speaker, I believe the records management and the data collection across the GNWT is severely lacking.

One way to start tackling this problem is through a pilot project. The federal government has a pilot project called "Open by Default." I believe we need a similar project. This would essentially mean opening up departments' working documents, their version of DIMS, to the public. I think a very easy start would be Education, Culture and Employment, perhaps the Prince of Wales. I assume our archivists' records are in good keeping.

Mr. Speaker, in our previous government, we had a Minister responsible for transparency. We no longer have that portfolio. I believe the policy that was created by that Minister is a good start. However, the implementation is severely lacking. Given the way that this government had adapted to COVID-19, the GNWT must take large steps to become a digital and open government, and I believe that that must be a priority going forward.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the first step along this is to make a clear Minister responsible for open government, and I believe a clear department to have the authority to clean up the records across the GNWT. Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Premier of whether she is willing to create such a position and make sure we actually do some implementation work on becoming a digital government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.