Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Kent Cooper, former executive director of the Associated Press, is often credited with coining the term "right to know." Stated as early as 1945 that the citizen is entitled to have access to news fully and accurately presented. There cannot be political freedom in one country, or in the world, without respect for the right to know. In the years since, the public's right to know has extended to public governments as well.

As noted here in the Northwest Territories, our Information and Privacy Commissioner Andrew Fox stated: Government has to facilitate the access to information and to protect the privacy interests of everyone, every one of us. But Commissioner Fox also notes that one of the key parts of having these Acts work is to ensure that people who are making it happen are sufficient in number and are trained to a level of competence. Without that, it doesn't work. And there's the rub, Mr. Speaker, is making the system work, and ours just isn't working it.

In the fiscal year 2021-2022, one third of access requests were late. Now that number is over half of all access requests. The government is also noted to be lacking in policies, resources, and training to adequately serve our Access to Information and Protection of Privacy regime. This is a chronic and pervasive deficit within the Government of the Northwest Territories, especially in the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services agency who Commissioner Fox notes is the worst example.

It is not only high staff turnover and lack of policies and resources that are creating this problem. It's also the sheer number of access requests that have increased it more than 20-fold in recent years. Also of note is the timelines for the access regime have been shortened in an effort to improve citizens' access and responsiveness to the regime. These were all well intentioned choices, but it's unfortunately burdened the system with timelines that are just too short. And recently, there was a high-profile case where someone had to wait more than 180 days/six months to get their access request granted after the IPC had made an order to do so.

So I will have questions for the Minister responsible for that department's access regime and the overall department's access regimes because we need to do better. Our citizens have a right to know. It's our job to make sure that right is realized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.