Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the primary ways that we make residents aware of the engagement opportunities is through the government of the NWT's flagship website. Information related to all active, pending, and closed engagement opportunities, including engagement regulations, is posted on the "Have your Say" page. We pre-published 17 draft regulations since the guidelines were created last year. EIA is currently making edits to the handbook to create a more user-friendly format, and this work is expected to be done in the spring. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that -- or the Premier for that. Needless to say the Premier can probably detect that I'm not very happy about the way this is rolled out.

Can the Premier explain why each Minister and agency gets to decide if, how, and when, any public or standing committee engagement takes place on new regulations? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Regulation-making authority is outlined in each of our territorial laws. It's the Legislative Assembly that decides whether a Minister or Cabinet or another entity has responsibility for making regulations under a territorial law.

In cases where a Minister is assigned regulation-making authority under the law, the Minister decides whether engagement is to take place because it is the Minister that's responsible for all matters arising within their department. The guidelines are helpful in that they outline the incidents when a Minister should publish a draft regulation for input. They provide guidance in that regard. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Premier for that. Of course, I'm not asking for an opportunity to review every single set of regulations but a more collaborative process; a better reflection of so-called consensus government should have been carried out here. The only way for the public to know about regulations now is by combing through the wildly popular Northwest Territories Gazette that is posted after most of the regulations are already made.

Will the Premier commit to reviewing the Cabinet operational guidelines publishing proposed regulations with standing committee and the public before the end of this Assembly. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've had almost a year with the process of publishing the draft regulations. I will commit that before the end of this Assembly we will review them to see if there's any improvements that need to be made, and we will share that -- we'll engage with standing committee as part of that review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

A lot of changes I'm going to ask for today relate to the income assistance review. Can the Minister clarify when we will see the updated -- or sorry, can the Minister provide an update on the progress of this review and when we can expect to see frontline policy change as a result of this work? Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Members are aware, or as they've been notified, we are currently engaging the public and stakeholders on the income assistance program. That engagement ends tomorrow. There have been meetings with Indigenous governments, vendors, former income assistance clients, current income assistance clients, and so on, and once we have that information we will have a "what we heard" report to share with the House and a -- the reprofiled income assistance program that will be the ultimate result of all of this work should roll out in April 2023. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my concern is that it doesn't leave for a lot of time for us to see how the new program is working towards the end of our term. And we've spent a lot of our time over the course of the 19th Assembly identifying changes that different Members would like to see to the income assistance program. A lot of these changes are longstanding challenges that NWT residents have seen for decades. And so I'm wondering why not start with the low hanging fruit or changes to policies that present barriers to getting Northerners housed? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There have been some changes. I mean, everyone now is on the wellness productive choice and so that is essentially been eliminated. That's something that's been asked for. So I want -- I just want to note that there are some things happening but, you know, calling something low hanging fruit doesn't mean it's low hanging fruit. The change the Member's talking about would probably cost millions of dollars, and we're working on that right now to make those determinations. So it's not as easy as just saying let's do something. There's other factors. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Somebody's paying for housing; I guess it just depends on who. It's either shelters, or it's ECE, or it's Housing.

Within the income assistance program policies, many policies that relate to housing Northerners are at the discretion of senior managers or the director. This means policies are subjective and potentially inconsistently applied to NWT residents. It also means people are sitting waiting for approvals rather than securing housing.

So will the Minister issue an immediate directive to remove "with director approval" from policies that is present housing barriers allowing clients to work directly with their caseworker to secure their rent benefit? Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think if you have a director, then it would be more consistent than spreading it out perhaps. But the director is a statutory officer of the income assistance program, and the director has given discretion to regional managers and client service officers to issue rental benefits on the behalf of clients.

So in situations where a client doesn't have their name on the public housing waitlist or their rent exceeds the limits that we have on rent, the client service officer has to seek approval from the director but in my experience that happens very quickly. People aren't waiting days or weeks for this to happen. So having that central authority provides the consistency that the Member is talking about, and we don't sacrifice time. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister and I have differing reports back from people who are using this service and that sometimes days or even a week means that somebody is not housed in that time.

Will the Minister remove the requirement on the income assistance clients to put their names on the public housing waitlist knowing that there's not enough public housing in the NWT and that housing Northerners relies on market rentals, partnerships, and also alternate housing solutions? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If Members are aware of specific issues where people are waiting weeks for a service, please let me know. As part of the income assistance review, I want to make sure that we include some way to track these types of incidents. Until then, if I don't know I don't know. So I think it's the duty of everyone to let me know about that when they hear it because I want to make sure that doesn't happen.

And the comment the Member made about removing the waitlist requirement, we're working on that, as I've said. There's money involved. There's other things involved. But I've heard the Member, and we are considering that as part of the review. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Thank you. Since there's so much interest in this Assembly, I will commit to looking at the rebate for electrical bikes as part of the three-year energy action plan and the business planning process. And you know what, Mr. Speaker, this doesn't mean the Member keep asking questions that I would eventually say, yes. This is not the case. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Quite a few of my constituents ride electric bikes, and they're quite proud of them. My question for the Minister of Infrastructure is if I bring an electric bike over here to the legislature, will she take it out for a rip, Mr. Speaker?

Quanainni. I have a bicycle, but I use the pedals. So, you know, if they want to test a electrical bicycle, by all means; I'd be happy to do circles around the Assembly.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.