Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely, again, the priorities -- number of priorities, can't stress enough, bring them down. Although I do have to say that although we've had 22 priorities and we've had COVID, you know, we're on the way at 65 percent are in progress; 23 percent are done. So, you know, we're still working on them and I'm quite impressed with this -- the public servants, as you state, because of that.

I think it's also important -- I like the idea of a legacy for the Assembly. You know, I think about the legacy when I first began and people were asking me what legacy do you want to leave. And more than a legacy.

I know Minister Green in the last Assembly, we were really big on women in politics. We achieved that in this Assembly. And so, you know, I mean, that's one legacy that I'm really proud of with my colleague and all of us here. But that wasn't enough. And I was debating what it would be. And then COVID hit, and my whole focus became one, keeping people safe, if I was to say what legacy it was at the beginning. And maybe even now with what's going on in Ukraine, it's keeping people safe was a priority for me.

The other thing is, you know, I did ask every time I see an ex-MLA or an ex-Premier, mostly the Cabinet Minister, I tend to ask them what can you teach me. And I've gotten some valuable advice from that. But I think I'm going to change my tone because I think it's, like, I'm going to start asking them what would you have done differently might be a better question for them. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier. Ms. Cleveland.

No further comments, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Any other questions? MLA for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am -- actually for me to come in mid term -- midway through the -- this term for the 19th Assembly is -- has been interesting so far for me as MLA for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh riding. And you know, I was -- had a chance to review some of these documents of the mandate that was put together in 2019 to 2023, and my immediate thoughts were they're very ambitious, in particular, you know, when you talk about the United Nation Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People; you know, how we're going to get there and, you know -- and I'd still like to see that through and the work is continuing on that area.

So I hit the road running, and I'm trying to catch up and understand, you know, what's been happening here and -- but you got to keep in mind too as well that, you know, as a former chief, band councillor, chairman for the impact review board, I did a lot of stuff here in the North, and I do understand how government works. And we talk about consensus government and how, you know, we're supposed to work together in trying to look for common ground and to build relationships. And at the end of the day, you know, we're trying to be accountable and transparent to our constituents in our -- here in the Northwest Territories.

You know, but when I think back about how I was involved in the communities as a tradesman and as a housing manager, and how I worked in government and later on became involved in construction management and that kind of thing, so I had a chance to sit on the national level and different levels and for DFN housing committees and etcetera, and housing's still a pretty passionate thing for us here in the Northwest Territories, and it's part of your mandate. And you know, your -- principles here, they're very important principles. And the thing is that how do we get there? And I know it's going to be talked about as well as the mandate of the Housing Corporation, how do we better bridge the gaps with Indigenous governments here in the Northwest Territories if in fact that it's been born in 1972? You know, here we are today, and we're still trying to figure out how we're going to resolve this issue of housing. And it's a huge undertaking.

But again, I said right from the beginning that I want to work with the Minister and the Premiers and the MLAs and colleagues to really trying to solve some of the issues in our community constituency, and I had no involvement in this document, but I would say that, you know -- you know, the work that was done by the 19 MLAs and the -- it's important document here. And for me is that I wanted to see how we can continue to improve the lives of our -- the people here in the Northwest Territories. And, you know, whether it be looking at fuel reduction of fuel, power subsidy.

Like in the Yukon, there's so many things that we could -- could take a look at to improve the lives of the people in our communities. And as a former chief, you know, it makes it really tough because I was on the other side. I seen the business side as the chairman for the impact review board. Now I'm here, and I -- this document that was put in front of me here is -- it's a big one that was put together by everybody here, and it's a very important document. And my question is how do we get there?

And I don't want to see, you know, some of the big ticket items fall off the table. You know, the biggest one I would say I'm in support of is the implementation of the United Nation Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, you know. The other one is settling the implement of treaty lands and resources and settle government agreements. Those are big ticket items. But, you know, for me is that we also need a strong economy here in the Northwest Territories. We need to -- it's -- I know the two years that's been happening here already is -- you know, we hit the wall with, you know, this COVID, and before COVID, and life after COVID. You know, we got to work together I guess and see how we're going to address all of these issues.

You know, and -- so I'm looking forward to move through this document and really look -- maybe help provide some input to the Premier and Cabinet, and continue to look for ways to improve the lives of our people in our communities, in particular housing is still the number 1 issue. We have to look at new ways as to how we could work with aboriginal and Indigenous governments, you know, through contribution agreements, maybe work with Ottawa so that they could continue to get money back into the communities.

At the end of the day, you know, we still need work. People are looking for jobs. Mining industry is not going to always going to be there. Oil and gas is down. So, I hear that almost every day. You know, people who need jobs, you know, so.

Anyway, so I just want to say to the Premier and the Cabinet and MLAs here, it's been a privilege and an honour to at least been here for the last month, and we're hitting the road running, and I'm trying to -- there's so many issues that I could probably talk about but this one here, I'm hoping that we go through this document and I will continue to provide input. So I just want to say that to Mr. Speaker and to the Premier and the Cabinet and my colleagues. Mahsi.

Thank you. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're right, you did come in halfway through and you hit the road running. Probably the not best; no time to stumble, but. Could be on Cabinet; that's what we always say - hit the road running and you keep running.

I think housing is a priority for this government on both sides of the House. It's why I came. I think you've learnt today I've spent 20 years of my life before politics working with low income family, specifically running homeless shelters. My -- that's why I came. And that's where I'm going when I'm finished, back to that work. So, and I always -- one thing I'd like to say is I always ask people for advice whenever. I don't have all the answers. I'm old enough to know that I don't know everything, and that's a strength in itself. So if you don't have my number, get my number from me. Call me any time you want, whether it's to complain about something, less of that, but if you have an answer or a solution, give me a call. I'm always willing -- Members call me at all times, day and night.

And one advice I'll give you, though, if you hit the road running, it's true. I think you're old enough that you probably were -- back in the day, you probably did some of that bumper riding on the ice road to Dettah. I used to do that. It's illegal now. Don't do that, anybody out there. But if you see a bus running, don't grab that bumper because that bus usually isn't very good in politics. But other than that, that's my advice. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier. Mr. Edjericon.

That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further questions?

Seeing no further general comments, does the committee agree to review Tabled Document 567-19(2): Annual Status Report - 2019-2023 Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories, February 2021 - January 2022, by priority?

Committee, we will begin at pages 21 to 22: Increase the number of affordable homes and reduce core housing need. Questions? Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Although it's not one of the specific action items in here, we did get the Minister and the deputy minister to agree to prepare a plan to get our housing out of core need, and I had understood that that plan was going to be available before March 31st so I guess they got three days to go. But I'm just wondering if I can get an update as to the status of that work. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Premier.

Mr. Chair, that would go to the Minister of Housing.

Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just received that document today, and I'm just taking a look at it right now, and it's up -- we're reviewing it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Can I look over the Minister's shoulder while she's looking at it? Okay, all right, great. So I expect that we're going to get it in the next two or three days. That would be great.

And the reason why I keep raising this is when my colleagues from Cabinet go to Ottawa and talk about our housing needs, it's very easy to identify what the needs are. The more difficult part of the conversation is translating that into a plan and the costs associated with getting our housing out of core need. So that's why I keep harping on this. I harped on it in the last Assembly. So here I am five, six years later asking the same questions. If you don't have that kind of document ready, you don't really have any case to make with Ottawa in terms of our needs in a financial sense.

I know that we also need partnerships and, you know, skilled people but if you don't have a way of starting to put, you know, a financial cost on any of that, we're not going to get anywhere. So I guess I would also ask, you know, about this partnership arrangement.

Indigenous governments are increasingly getting money directly from Ottawa, and I think that's partly because we just can't do the job as a government, and/or that the Indigenous governments don't really trust GNWT to do it for them or with them anymore. So they're going directly to Ottawa to get the money.

So how are we going to deal with this as a government, not just as a government but as the Northwest Territories, so that, okay, if Indigenous governments are getting some direct funding themselves, what are they using it for and how do we know about that so that GNWT can better direct the money that it has available to it to meet other sorts of needs? So it seems like we need to have some better coordination, information sharing at the Northwest Territories level. And I don't really see anything in this particular area, and I think this is something that's quickly evolving and is likely to change even more in the next couple of weeks, but how do we start to build better trust and information sharing so that there's like a whole-of-territories approach to improving housing? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Premier.

Mr. Chair, I'll take this one. The Indigenous governments are getting more money from Ottawa, and the reason they're doing that I'm hoping is not just because that they don't trust us and we're doing a horrible job, I think it's because as a Cabinet we've been lobbying for the Indigenous governments to get money from Ottawa.

In the last Cabinet, which I was a part of, the philosophy was give us all the money because we know best and then we will decide where the money goes. That didn't work well for that Cabinet in honesty. Like I said, I was part of that, and I did see one Indigenous government get money and no other one. And so I learned from -- I try to learn from my mistakes as well as learning from our successes, and I learned that that was a bad strategy for the Cabinet. And so this Cabinet, from the very beginning, I've been saying to Ottawa and to the Indigenous governments, we are not your enemies; we are not a Cabinet that says give us all the money. We will stand beside the Indigenous governments. I've told Trudeau; I've told Carolyn Bennett that; I've told all the ministers that. They were shocked at the beginning and now they take it as normal. I told the Indigenous governments and I had to gain their trust, and it took some time, but I listened to them and I've gone to Ottawa with their asks and asked for their asks, not only for our asks but for what they need as well. So I think that we're doing a great job of working together with the federal government and with the Indigenous governments.

One of the things that I'm most proud about in this government, one of them, is the Council of Leaders table that we took part in. So we formed the Council of Leaders table. Every single Indigenous government is on it.

And one of the first priorities that we're doing, the Council of Leaders and Minister Chinna -- kudos to Minister Chinna -- is that we've agreed that there is a working group that is formed from that table that will be looking at every single one of the housing policies. How more working in collaboration can you get than actually sitting at a table with all of the Indigenous governments and looking at all of the policies for housing?

And I'm hoping, Mr. Chair, that that will just keep going. Not only ending with housing but every program because that is part of United Nations declaration, is doing that work. And it's going to take time but we're committed to doing it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Well, that's good to hear about the work at the Council of Leaders with the working group on housing, and they're going to look at policies. But I guess I'm hoping that they're going to look at more than just policies, that they're actually going to be sharing information, as our government can and should as well, about what the housing needs are in terms of our stock and the programs and so on that we have in place.

Look, I don't really care who improves the housing. The question is getting the work done. And if partnerships are part of the answer, just go and do it, but. So I guess I want to get some assurance from the Premier that this working group is more than just looking at policies; this is about information sharing, coordination, and improving housing for everybody. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Premier.