Thank you, Madam Premier. We agreed to begin with general comments. Does the Premier wish to bring witnesses into the House?

Yes, Mr. Chair, I'd like to bring in Martin Goldney, the deputy minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs and secretary to Cabinet.

Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Would the Minister please introduce her witness.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The one witness I have is Mr. Martin Goldney, the secretary for Cabinet and also the deputy minister for Executive and Indigenous Affairs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will now open the floor for general comments on the Minister's statement and tabled document. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess just I'd like to reflect back on how we got here. We all -- we got elected, and we came together in a room and created our priority document. And I think since that time, there's been a lot of discussion about probably having less priorities. And I guess I will just frame that as a comment for future Assemblies, that if you make everything a priority then, you know, nothing is a priority.

But then that priority document was given to Cabinet and different than the last Assembly, this is truly a Cabinet's mandate. There was lots of collaboration with Regular Members, and it's a very -- you know, it's probably the best mandate the GNWT's ever seen in form and substance. It has clear and measurable targets. It improves upon a number of previous mandates which had far too much in them, and there was not clear control of who actually was to get those things done.

And we all know that, you know, you can -- you can only plan as much as possible but we've dealt with floods and COVID, and all around I just want to start by thanking this Cabinet for this work. This has not been an easy time. We actually don't have a single Cabinet Minister other than our Premier who's ever held a portfolio. The majority of MLAs in this House have never been MLAs. It's been a steep learning curve for all of us. And I do believe that -- I wasn't in the last Assembly but from all I've heard, this is a truly collaborative government. I would like to -- you know, perhaps I don't say nice things enough in this House but our Premier has been truly a Premier in consensus, I believe both in her own Cabinet and on this side working with Members. It's clear she has directed her Ministers to work with Members. I don't feel there's a single Cabinet Minister who is not willing to hear my concerns. I believe they're all committed to working with us. I believe our Premier is committed to working with us. And I believe she has, you know, given the proper amount of latitude to Ministers to run their departments and the proper direction to, you know, have them work with MLAs.

I also want to thank our Premier for -- it's not an easy job. It's a job of tough pills to swallow, and no one's giving you a glass of water. You know, day one they tell you how broke you are, and then, you know, the Regular MLAs say why aren't you doing anything, and the Indigenous governments say why aren't you doing anything, and then the union tells you why are you doing this, and then the Chamber of Commerce says why are you doing that. And pile on COVID, it's a job that is no shortage of criticism, but I believe we, as an Assembly and our Premier and Cabinet, and all of our public servants, have got through COVID with a model response, and it's something we should all be proud of.

I would also just like to point out that there's regular reporting on this mandate. Committees have been apprised of each step along the way. I actually expect this mid term review to be a quick exercise and not too onerous because we truly have been informed for each priority along the way, and we are very well briefed on how those priorities are going. So I think we have taken the right steps of, you know, publicly reporting on the mandate. This was also the first government where the Premier published mandate letters. That was another good step. So the fact that we are well aware of where we are and met many mandate items does not make the mid term review the big fight it was in the last Assembly.

Additionally, I think we decided not to have the kind of fake confidence votes that happened in the last mid term review. That was a great step. I can tell you right now if we had a bunch of fake confidence votes, I would not vote nonconfidence for any of these Ministers. I would keep them all exactly where they are, and including our Premier. And I thank them for that. So I don't think we need to do that exercise, and I don't suggest any other Assembly ever do that ridiculousness with the mid term review.

So with those kind comments, I'm sure I will have many more critical ones as we go through this. But I want to point out, you know, a lot of the work we have done has happened outside of the mandate. A lot of the great work we're doing, you know, with the universal daycare was -- progressed much faster than we ever could have imagined due to the federal government. I expect many more big federal budget announcements to come forward next week, and we're going to see even more progress on many of our priorities.

And I want to point out that, you know, this mandate is probably about the right size for the GNWT. There is always an effort to do more, to bring forward more legislation, to make more policies, but there's very limited bandwidth in policy shops in the GNWT and you can pile on COVID, and you can pile on the never ending kind of need to engage everyone, and it becomes hard to do things fairly.

I guess my last kind of comment, though, is that, you know, we all have to kind of define what we want consensus to look like in the next 18 months. You know, everyone kind of has a different definition of consensus. I think we've been operating on a model that probably involves a bit too much consensus, and I think there's probably a bit of a hesitancy to, you know, bring forward things that are going to be ten, eight votes, or very close votes, and there's a bit of a hesitancy to push things through. But there's a mandate here. There's probably some decisions that will have to be pushed through and may make some people unhappy and, you know, this is our Cabinet that we elected as Members and, you know, I just encourage them that, you know, sometimes you got to make unpopular choices and sometimes you don't have to engage the Regular MLAs on every little thing and you just got to get it done. So, you know, there -- we don't always need more talking, more reviews, or more compromise and middle ground. We got 18 months left. Let's make sure we get everything done that we said we were going to do. And with that, I would just like to thank the Premier and my Cabinet colleagues for their work to date. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. Premier.

Mr. Chair, what can I say? Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Any further questions? Member?

Thank you. While I don't agree with a lot of my colleague's statements there about the leadership and direction of this Cabinet, I will say that I do agree with the fact that the number of priorities was unreasonable and unable to attain. So in retrospect, had I had a chance to do it over again, I would very much not have the number of priorities that I see here, as well too being aware of how things progressed in the first ten months of this Assembly, I'm well aware of how the mandate was developed in such that a lot of this work was already going on. So to then write out a mandate so that you can just get checklists and checkmarks next to things that were already happening, I don't see as being something to really celebrate a lot of. The creation of other money being spent on things that -- the creation of a greater public service, I don't agree with that either. And I'm really disappointed in the lack of progress around the regional economic plans and getting the money into small communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only thing I can say is that the previous Member is right, and this Member is right, the number of priorities was too much, and I did say that when we began this Assembly. And I'm hoping that at the next Assembly, and I know that we're only at the mid term point, but I hope that Members that run again, that decide to run again that get back in again, will remember that because I 100 percent agree that when you have too many priorities, nothing is a priority, and it would have been way better if we would have had six or less. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chair. I guess I wanted to -- I have the benefit of having sat through the last Assembly, and I actually served on the transition matters committee that provided its advice to this Assembly and one of the specific pieces of advice was to have fewer priorities, and that wasn't followed. I was part of the process that developed the priorities. I urged my colleagues to have fewer priorities but my views didn't prevail, and I still think we have too many. I think some of them conflict with each other, and some of them are -- it just raised unrealistic expectations for our residents and are just simply not even possible. I'll go on record as saying that trying to promote three big infrastructure projects at the same time is just not something that's even achievable financially, so. But I do believe that, you know, this Cabinet is prepared to actually work with Regular MLAs. That's not something I saw in the last Assembly so I want to give my Cabinet colleagues credit for that, that they are willing to sit down and work with us as Regular MLAs. Even if sometimes I disagree with the outcome, at least they're willing to sit down and talk with us and I think that's a huge improvement over the last Assembly where Cabinet just went to look for their three friends and did whatever it wanted. So that has been a big improvement.

I guess if -- I do want to address my colleague from Yellowknife North about what he characterized as "fake votes." These were not fake votes. We tried to work very hard to come up with a nonthreatening way to evaluate the performance of Ministers and, you know, I was part of the rules and procedures committee. I chaired it when we came up with that process. Like, we put a lot of time and effort into that. At the end of the day, though, Cabinet didn't respect the process in my view, and that's why we ended up with a process that didn't really work. So they were not fake votes. They were -- it was an attempt to try to find some compromise and some way of holding Ministers accountable. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

With this review, though, I don't feel terribly well prepared. It's been a long sitting. I have not done my homework. I'm going to confess that right now, but -- and I don't think that we've spent enough time to actually evaluate what's in this document as Regular MLAs.

I will give my Cabinet colleagues some credit for taking what was a rather broad wish list and trying to put in place some measurable targets in there I think with varying degrees of success. I would have appreciated more measurables around some of the specific priorities. But I think it's better than the last mandate that came forward from the previous Assembly but -- or Cabinet, I should say, but I think it still could use a lot more work.

Yeah, I think COVID has really taken a lot out of us all in terms of the focus that we had as a government at the beginning, our ability to do work even together as this -- as an Assembly, as MLAs, as Cabinet, as Regular MLAs. And I -- you know, I think we do need -- owe it to the public to review that very carefully. I expect that there's going to be another transition matters committee established towards the end of this Assembly, and I'd be willing to serve and volunteer to serve on that again. And hopefully the next Assembly will listen a little more carefully. I don't know.

But I have lots of other comments, Mr. Chair, that I will make as we work our way through the document. But I wanted to correct, I think, some of the things that I think I heard said, but also give this Cabinet some credit for their ability and willingness to at least work with Regular MLAs compared to the last one. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was on the last Cabinet so I do like to think that we weren't all that bad in the last Assembly. At least not all of us, anyway. But we are trying as a new Assembly. We've been really adamant about trying to work with Members. You know, pick your battles has always been a philosophy as I've said, so.

As for the Member saying that he hasn't done his homework and, you know, not really ready for this is that I can personally say that I think that the Member that was speaking was one of the hardest-working Members that I knew in the last Assembly. So I have no doubt that -- that -- you know, that this is still a priority for him. And this is one chance to review the mid term review. But it's not only the chance. We'll be reviewing these priorities for the next two years coming forward. So just stating that this is not the only time to ask questions on these priorities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier. Mr. O'Reilly. Ms. Martselos.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too want to just express my appreciation I guess in the working relationship that I developed with Cabinet, and especially the Premier and the Minister of Health, and everyone. There has been times -- there will be times when we don't agree but we have to leave that at the door. And I think that the working relationship that I established with Cabinet is a good one. And some of the Ministers are more open than others, and that's always the case anyways in any political democracy.

I really would stress, though, that we are a consensus government, and many times I feel that consensus is not working because I feel that a lot of the decisions are made at your level and we either take it or leave it kind of thing. And I'm just going to be very open about that because, you know, in the last few days here, I haven't been very happy about a couple things, and hopefully we'd be able to work through those and come out with a positive response because I feel that, you know, many times people see things through a very narrow tunnel instead of looking at the whole picture. And the whole picture shows something different many times. And with the experience that I bring to this floor, with all the business experience and leadership experience, it's not always everything that has to fit in that little box. And -- you know, and I've been able to work through most of my issues, and hopefully -- I only have two small issues, and if I'm able to work through those two small issues I will be very happy about that.

But overall the mandate is being met and like I said, I've had excellent working relationships with the majority of Cabinet, and I just want to thank you for that because I think Cabinet, you can go down the hall very easily and talk to anyone, and I don't know if that happened in the past, whether you agree with them or not, but it's okay. And with that, I want to thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, thank you for the kind comments from the Member. I think -- the one thing I pick up about this Assembly that I never really felt so much, maybe because of the position I'm in, but the different strengths that we all bring as Members. You're absolutely right that we might not agree on everything. But every single person here has immense background and immense knowledge in whatever fields they have, and it's by working together that we actually make better decisions. So what I took, and I'll try to keep that with me all the time, is think outside the box. The Member's right, that sometimes we get kind of stuck in the ways, the comfortable ways, and we need to challenge ourselves.

So Ministers, think outside the box. Challenge yourselves. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier. Ms. Martselos.

I have no other comment at this moment, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Ms. Cleveland.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I've got feedback from my earphones.

So I just wanted to start off by saying thank you to my colleagues for the opportunity to speak to this, and I know that some of what I have to say will be somewhat repetitive a little bit. But I think it's important for residents for the Northwest Territories to hear, and I think one of the most important pieces of that is that piece on the number of priorities. And this was something that we talked about a bit in the very beginning of our time together, was the number of priorities that were appropriate for an Assembly. And I can't stress enough the importance of taking and kind of demanding that extra time upfront in order to really question how many priorities are appropriate. And one of the numbers that we kind of kept talking about that I remember in our brief conversations at the beginning were about that number to be about five to eight priorities would have been ideal, and that seems to be a number that has come up throughout the Assembly as the less the better.

And another conversation that we have had a lot in different kind of social circles and our time where we can really connect kind of out of formal meetings and out of session is the conversation around kind of legacy of an Assembly.

And so the other thing I guess that I'd like to challenge the next Assembly to do is to have a conversation upfront together about what each Member would like to see as their legacy together and then try building their priorities around that, because then you're deciding upfront what you're leaving behind for the people of the Northwest Territories. And I think that's so important, that key kind of message and piece about what you're really leaving behind. So I just wanted to reiterate that piece.

And then I also wanted to acknowledge both the hard work of public servants but then also our private sector. I think that this has been a very unique Assembly in that we have worked through COVID, but it's not just the Assembly; it is -- well, the entire world that has really kind of persevered through COVID and through change and trying to figure out what this all looks like and still move forward through that. And I think that the residents of the Northwest Territories all together need a huge kudos to that, including our colleagues on the other side of the House. I know that there were times where I myself stated that the excuse of COVID was no longer an excuse we were willing to hear. And that being said, it was still very much part of the lives of public servants and of Cabinet Ministers, and so I want to acknowledge the hard work that they did in spite of that and under immense pressure from this side of the House.

I look forward to this conversation, this public conversation about our priorities and what the next 18 months look like and note that it's not the end of this. I know that we discuss our priorities on a weekly basis with Cabinet, especially when we're in session. There's always items that relate directly or indirectly to our priorities.

And I also wanted to acknowledge what the Premier just said about thinking outside the box. And I think one of the important things that comes up a lot that I hear when listening to my colleagues or myself speak with Ministers on the other side of the House is quite often people will bring forward a challenge that they have with constituents. And often we hear a response of this is what the government is doing, or this is the process we've created. And sometimes, not all the time, sometimes some Ministers are very good to sit and kind of work through, you know, where's the gap or where's the break in communication. And I think that that think-outside-the-box piece is really important, especially as MLA Martselos referred to as that kind of tunnelled vision versus the whole picture and being able to say okay, this MLA or this constituent has brought forward a challenge and how does the current service or current process not working for this person is so important, and I think that some of our big challenges can be solved just by trying to, like the Premier says, think outside the box. So thank you very much, and I look forward to this conversation with our colleagues today, I know for the next 18 months. Thank you.