Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, Members of the House do receive the five-year plan. Again, consensus government's a little bit different. This isn't necessarily how it would happen in a lot of governments elsewhere in Canada. But we do have that opportunity here to do things a bit differently. So Members do receive that. The public doesn't get a copy of the five-year plan, and the real and simple reason for that is the concern around ensuring fairness in the procurement process. If a total budget is put forward on a project, then there is a live concern amongst procurement that, in fact, every bid's going to bid to the project price rather than ensuring a competitive process in tendering. So that's the reason the plan doesn't get published, Madam Speaker. We have tried to put some more information out this year. There was a graphic included, for example, in the capital plan that was provided. So, you know, again trying to get a bit more information out and make it more user friendly. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker. The other document which I would like to see, which I'm actually not sure exists -- I know we have a five-year needs assessment showing what we need. But whether we have a multiyear capital plan? I note I can go to the infrastructure acquisition plan and it shows we are currently planning to spend $1.4 billion in the future years. But there's certainly nothing that shows what we've already spent, the listing projects, whether things are on time, whether things are completed, if something gets completed -- well, we don't ever actually know that and we certainly never see a final cost of any project publicly listed anywhere. So I think some sort of planning document would be very helpful. Is the Minister willing to create a multiyear capital plan? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I'm going to take a bit from my colleague down the way here and the Minister of Infrastructure. The Department of Infrastructure really does have the lead for a large portion of the capital projects that go through, and that department, in response to concerns like this, is actually developing a dashboard. It will be a public dashboard and will be providing exactly the kind of synopsis that the Member's describing. And I can certainly commit to keep him updated as to the progress on that dashboard, or I'm sure my colleague will. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Minister. Find supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker. Yeah, and I'd be very interested to know whether Infrastructure is going to include the projects that don't fall under it. You know, I know we're building quite a number of long-term care facilities under Health and Social Services that -- not under Infrastructure, as an example.

And lastly, in our capital plan, we get one sentence description of projects, and then what happens is Members kind of ask, you know, what's going on with this playground fencing? Or we just ask these tedious questions that takes us hours and hours of review to get any information out there publicly. But I know that the departments have some sort of brief description more than one sentence. And I'm just wondering if those descriptions would be something the Minister would be willing to publish with future capital plans. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So, again, Madam Speaker, that unusual consensus government process is that Members who would be on these sort of, quote unquote, "other side of the House" do get what are called substantiation sheets. That does give a fair bit of detail about upcoming projects. And it does include the budgetary detail that, again, right now most governments would consider to be not part of good procurement practice to be sharing publicly. So that's why those don't go out. But the point of the dashboard -- a part of the dashboard, the purpose of the dashboard I was just describing, is exactly that, to give that snapshot of where projects are at and what has been spent on them. So, again, looking forward to having that out in public so that hopefully there will come a year where we don't have to have this conversation during the capital session. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member. Minister of Justice.

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yes, it is. I would have liked to see more progress on this during the life of this government, but we had quite an ambitious mandate. We dealt with COVID. And we weren't able to put the time into working on integrating services the way I would have liked to see. But it is definitely still a priority for us and for me personally. Thank you.

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I completely agree with the Minister that it needs to be a priority and that it stands to not only better serve Northerners, but it stands to actually save the government quite a bit of money on their bottom line every year.

Earlier this year, the Minister spoke about the challenges associated with privacy laws when trying to provide residents with a multi-departmental approach to service delivery. How is the GNWT addressing this and on what timeline? Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Recently there was a report done that looked at our attempts to integrate services and some of the barriers. And out of that report there were things identified such as these privacy issues. And so from that steps have been taken. Departments are working on addressing those issues. So that work is happening, and it is ongoing. Thank you.

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, Recommendation No. 9 of the Report of the Review of the 2022 Audit of Addictions, Prevention and Recovery Services that was tabled by the Standing Committee on Government Operations recommended that the Department of Health and Social Services and the health and social services authorities set up a distinct method for frontline staff to identify barriers to care and cultural safety or propose better practices and policies on an ongoing basis and provide a timeline for implementation.

So will the Minister responsible for integrated service delivery ensure that a similar frontline feedback loop exists for all frontline staff within the government? Thank you.

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I wish I could commit to that. You know, I've spoken about that for years. But that's another area that we are working on. And I wish I had better answers. This is a work in progress. When you have something that includes all of government, it is -- it's a big project. You have a number of departments. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Everyone needs to be on the same timelines. Everyone needs to be available for the same meetings and there's only so many people to go around. So we are plugging away at it, and we are taking steps in that direction. Thank you.