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.