Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the department has looked at this previously. It was a few years ago, maybe around 2015 I believe. So currently there is an oversight body in the territory, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission. They review investigations into RCMP conduct. As the Member stated earlier, though, those investigations are conducted by other police bodies, whether it's the RCMP or perhaps a municipal police force. The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is something different. It's not headed by a police force. It's -- there's a civilian essentially at the head of that, and they work with police forces as well as independent investigators to actually look into the RCMP. And this is only for very serious incidents, not every complaint that might be brought forward.

So we have looked into this previously. The cost is quite a bit. There would be -- from the last discussions we had, the requirement was to have a couple investigators on staff and then as well as a travel budget for them to travel around. So we're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars for the, you know, zero or one or two cases a year, or three or four or five cases even a year that they might deal with, but the caseload and the cost they don't really align.

What we are doing is making investments in body-worn cameras, and those are beginning to roll out this month starting, I believe, here in Yellowknife and rolling out across the NWT over the next -- over the coming year. And so hopefully that will provide some comfort to individuals as well who want to ensure that the RCMP are held accountable. And of course that's what we all want. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has assured me that increasing safety of Indigenous women and girls is a priority for him and the commanding officer of G-division. Can the Minister speak to how all parties are moving forward with fulsomely addressing the concerns of the Yellowknife Women's Society report in a meaningful fashion? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And that is a priority. In fact, as Minister of Justice I establish the RCMP policing priorities. We go out for input from Indigenous governments and other stakeholders and from that we craft a limited number of policing priorities. One of those is to provide policing services that are responsive to the needs of Indigenous women, girls, families, and children experiencing family intimate partner violence and sexualized violence in the NWT. And there's only four priorities, and so that is one of the four priorities. So it is a priority for myself, and we've made it a priority for the RCMP as well.

The RCMP have been active participants in meetings to address housing and homelessness which have been occurring more frequently here in Yellowknife. They've offered to work with the service providers to improve their working relationship and better understand the needs of the clients. And that's in line with what we are doing as a government, trying to integrate our services and work more closely and more respectfully with the NGOs as well. And the RCMP, they did have a follow-up meeting with the Yellowknife Women's Society. And so the work is ongoing and will continue to be ongoing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm specifically interested in the women's society's recommendation that asks for resourcing for Street Outreach here in Yellowknife to be a 24/7 team alleviating pressures on the RCMP. Can the Minister commit for his department to seek funding pots for services across the GNWT, departments across the GNWT that might address this crucial need? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And there's no doubt that the Street Outreach program has been successful. I've spoken with the RCMP about it, and there's definitely a noticeable decrease in the types of calls that they have to respond to because of that team, and so I'm very supportive of that. Right now, the program is undergoing a review by the city of Yellowknife and so once we see the outcomes of that review, we'll have a better idea of what we actually need to do, what type of support they might need from the GNWT, and we can look at what types of funding that could be accessed at that point. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Justice. Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister. He'll be happy to know that review is out, and I look forward to hearing more from him.

There are a suite of recommendations in the women's society report that discuss comprehensive review of policing in the NWT. In particular, there's a request for consideration of establishing a Northwest Territories police council with Indigenous co-governance. Can the Minister say as to whether or not he's discussing this recommendation with the Council of Leaders? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the Member's correct, the review is out. We are reviewing the review, so that's the work that's happening now.

The Council of Leaders, this is not a topic that has been raised at the Council of Leaders. The agenda there are decided upon by consensus or as close as we can get to consensus, and this has not come up yet. But the new commanding officer is scheduled to meet with the NWT Council of Leaders at the next meeting, so I look forward to seeing what comes of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was very impressed to hear the statement made by the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs on the health care systems sustainability unit, the creation of that unit, which leads me to my first question to the Minister of Health and Social Services.

After a review of federal-funded positions hired in the Sahtu, is a medical travel coordinator position feasible? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, many of our programs that are federally funded are -- you know, they're allocated as to certain area that is are, you know, priorities of the federal government. And so we have to try and fit the needs of the Northwest Territories into that. However, you know, with the medical travel, you know, what I can do is I can commit to ensuring that we review as part of our process under reviewing medical travel where our staff are located, and where are they located it best meets the needs of the territory and the residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank to the Minister for that commitment there. I look forward to the results of that commitment on the review. Currently, as mentioned in my statement, we have 24 vacant funded vacancies.

My next question there, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister support medical escort assistant to that position as well? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to have to talk more with the Member as to what role that would be, and the way I'm interpreting it is it would be somebody that we would hire on to travel with people as escorts. But there are many family members that -- and people, residents, that would want their family too. So I guess we would have to review to see if that's what the Member is asking for, but I can commit to having further discussions to understand what that would mean. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my statement, and earlier as well, there's 24 funded vacancies. Will the Minister work with the other departments to see if those positions within the respective department will be filled? If not, is there a possibility of transferring that PY funds in the creation of a Sahtu regional medical travel coordinator? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the vacant positions within other departments, you know, health and social services is an enormous department, it is the largest department, and if I -- if I start eating up all of their vacant positions that they may be trying to recruit for or having trouble recruit for, I don't think my colleagues would be too happy with me. But what I can do is, like I mentioned to the Member, is I can commit to looking at what the needs are of the people of the Sahtu. I travelled with the Member. I heard a lot of different scenarios with -- along the lines of medical travel. So that is one thing that I will continue to highlight during our review to ensure that support is in place throughout the territory where it's needed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to say thank you to the Minister for looking at filling those two positions, possibly three. Mahsi.

Colleagues, please use this oral questions to ask questions. Thank you.

Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier around the health care sustainability unit. So the first question is does the Premier view the mandate of the health care sustainability unit as primarily to cut services that are non-core, seen as perhaps unnecessary or too fancy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I don't see the primary mandate of the health care system sustainability unit to be cutting of services. The health care system sustainability unit is going to be tasked -- is tasked with establishing a core services inventory for the insured and non-insured programs and services and quantifying their financial impact and their operational needs.

It's going to identify inefficiencies, duplications of resources, and unnecessary processes in health care operations, and recommend changes to enhance the overall efficiency.

It's going to establish continuous improvement cycle -- establish a continuous improvement cycle that includes a monitoring and evaluation framework that demonstrates how progress is being made and how it -- how it's being made in a sustainable way and how it will be measured.

It will evaluate the current programs to identify sustainable service levels, and it will work with the department and health authorities to enhance service delivery and develop cost effective health care solutions.

So this unit is -- has been created so we can actually get a handle on the health care system, know what we're doing, know how much it costs, and then figure out how to do it better and more efficient so that we can achieve this Assembly's priority of ensuring basic -- access to basic health care for all residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so there has been a lot of emphasis in the Premier's statements about the unit being focused on figuring out which health programs and services are core. So maybe the Premier could enlighten us as to some examples of services that the Premier would consider to be non-core. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So that's the work that this unit is going to do. I'll say the majority of what the health authorities do, the programs and services they deliver, they're necessary. They're not optional. You know, we're not going to send people who need dialysis all down south to the provinces to get their treatment. The types of services that residents need in the territory and that we can reasonably expect to deliver in the territory, we want to continue doing that. But the fact is that there's programming across the department -- or across the authorities that it could be duplicative, it could be inefficient, it could be a remnant of an old federal program that we no longer have the money for and doesn't align with our priorities. So we want to ensure that we get a good view of what's actually happening and making sure that it's efficient and making sure that we're monitoring that it's efficient. Thank you.