Thank you. I hear the Member's concerns, and I have to say with the new deputy minister and new director, we've come up with a very good plan and I think we're going to be able to achieve this.

We also, should people be aware, is that we are looking at the funding, the three different funding programs, and we were looking at to complete this in 2023-2024. We've made a commitment now that it will be done in 2022-2023. So it will be done the upcoming fiscal year. So we have a very good plan. It's very -- I think it's very solid. But for further detail, I'll ask the deputy minister to provide some clarity on if I missed anything or anything we need to add. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Minister. Deputy minister.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, it -- I guess my biggest concern is getting to kind of the 11th hour of this Assembly and then realizing that we needed to give MACA more resources to get this substantial legislative work done.

And so does the Minister of MACA intend to report to this House on the status of these legislative agenda items and will MACA bring forward a SUP to the House if they need additional resources to get this work done in this Assembly? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Yeah, we will report to committee. We'll give updates. It will probably be not quarterly but probably biannually we'll give you updates on that, because I want to get the department to focus on the work that we need to get done. We will provide that information to committee. I think that's just smart business and help committee understand where we're going.

In regards to this -- asking for a SUP, right now we feel that the money we have in place and the ability for the deputy minister to be creative within the department, we're able to achieve what we need to do. There's other demands within this government that we need to look at, and so you'll hear later on -- I think you heard when we did our presentation with the COVID Secretariat and how we were doing it, while we realign five positions within the department. So we are looking at creative ways of being able to be successful to meet what we're needing, and we've already told you guys that there was one piece of legislation that we weren't able to get done. But we are working on it. So I just want to make sure people are aware it's not -- we're not stopping. It's just that we have other priorities that we need do. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Are there any other Members who wish to speak to the directorate? Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think I'll take a little bit of a cause for some of my other colleagues that maybe don't have an opportunity today to speak.

I'm just looking at the directorate and the fact that all of the positions are headquartered -- are listed -- sorry, located in headquarters in Yellowknife with the no increase that my colleague spoke to. While I understand why a directorate would need to be in one location, we have talked many times about the move to virtual work. And I guess one conversation we have a lot on this side of the House is the small-communities-versus-Yellowknife-versus-regional-centres conversation, which we even had this morning, so I would -- I guess I'm curious to know within this directorate, like, how does that break out? Do we have staff where they are solely focused on a small community, or is the directorate more structured in a manner where they're all sort of doing work that's for the entire area?

And I guess where I'm going with this and why I'm asking is that it seems to me this might be a place where we could sort of really start to tackle that divide between the three -- like, I'm often struck that we're talking to Yellowknife at the same time that we're talking to Aklavik. And when I used to go sit, even as an engineer on national groups, I would sit and laugh to myself as Ontario and Quebec talks about their problems and I'm sitting here with, you know, ten member firms instead of, like, 40,000, right. So it's quite -- and I'm sure all the Cabinet understands this from their FBT tables, right. So I'm wondering if there's some way within this directorate that we could start to address that issue considering that MACA is the community department. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. I'll start, and then I'll turn -- with your permission, turn to the deputy minister.

This is something that we've talked at the Cabinet table about. We've talked about it at the DM and the senior management committee at our table there. We've had these conversations. But for the detail of where I think the Member's looking for, I'll turn to the deputy minister for further information. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Yeah, and I guess what I'm hearing then, and not to minimize the work, so they're kind of the operations, like you said the accountants, that kind of thing. So I guess then, I understand why they wouldn't be involved with the communities directly. However, then what is sort of the effort made to ensure then those roles are actually being held maybe by community members or former community members? And the reason I say that is that in every aspect of our work, that lived experience, that, you know, any time anybody making decisions for the North has had more experience in a small community, they're going to make a better decision for the North. So I guess my question is what kind of recruitment or strategy is there to ensure that, you know, those types of positions are filled by community members even if they're not in communities? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. So I can tell you that, you know, what we encourage is community-regional experience. It really helps at headquarters. You know, unfortunately sometimes the positions that we have within this, the organization, when people apply they do not have that community or regional experience. So our priority has always been to try to get community and regional people into headquarters where possible, especially -- because I -- I agree with the Member, what better way to be able to do things and understand things if you understand it from the community-regional aspect of things. I know -- and I can just use my experience from the sport rec side, that's how it used to be all the time. You had to have community experience before you moved into regional or headquarters. So we've been able to do that. Some of the superintendents that have moved on to headquarters have had that community regional experience, and it does build to the capacity. So, yeah, very much so, we look at that. But we want to get the best person for the job and sometimes the best person for the job may or may not have that community-regional experience. But we've been very fortunate, I would say. Everybody that I've seen, the new hires recently, has been community or NGOs or regional experience moving forward. So hopefully that answers the question the Member's looking for. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I know that the Minister's constituents will remind him if he's not, you know, promoting and championing community people getting into these positions.

I guess that leads me to ask, then, about the department's involvement with the Indigenous Gateway Program and how much does the department really utilize that? Because I do see MACA as being a department that very much is one where the work could be trained, not so much -- like ENR, and your other hat, has some very specific, you know, scientific years of study type roles but MACA, you know, there are a lot that we could be training. And I'm worried, like we've said many times, that we're keeping good people just because they don't have that capacity or that training or that experience, that paper, right. And I know my colleague that's sitting in the chair right now has commented already this session that we need to be looking at the pool of candidates available and then, you know, working backwards from that to get them into these positions versus oh sorry, you don't meet our very specific criteria, so. And I do note that the department has one of the higher targets for Indigenous hiring of all of the -- it's ambitious. So maybe the Minister or the department can speak a little bit to are they one of the bigger departments using the Indigenous Gateway Program; is there a way that that could be more fostered, any comments around that? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

For that clarity, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.