Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, so I'm going to go back to the questions I was asking earlier as the Premier rightfully pointed out I was in the wrong section. I'm still in the process of familiarizing myself with the great machine that is our government.

So, yeah, back to that question, I think I'd repose it. I'm just looking for kind of some explanation as to what the government's goals are for self-government and Indigenous rights agreements over the term of this Assembly. You know, publishing updates to the GNWT principles and interests just does not seem like a very ambitious goal, and so I'm kind of looking to the Premier to indicate how we are challenging the status quote with this item.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So it's -- you know, in the last government the mandate commitments were to settle land claims. Well, that's just what we're supposed to be doing. And so the way to do that is look at the negotiations, figure out what the issues are, figure out where the GNWT perhaps needs to change its position or align itself with an Indigenous government to work together to help change Canada's position, and then make those changes in the negotiating mandates. And that may be uncomfortable. That may be a departure from the way thing have been done in the past. But we need to push the envelope because we heard comments earlier about the money that is brought into the territory, the capacity that is built when claims are settled. That really is I think the key to supporting the regions and bringing wealth into the territory and spreading it out around the territory. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do appreciate the Premier providing that clarity because I think it'll help the public kind of better understand what we're trying to achieve. And maybe if we just push a little bit, I mean, does the Premier kind of have any updates for committee on whether there's any indication that we will see a settled claim within the term of this Assembly? Are we moving forward, or are things currently stalled? I'm kind of curious to hear some more comment on that.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.

Thank you. And there are some promising tables. Hope to see some things settled during this government. I don't really want to get into specifics. As they are in negotiations, I don't want to poison the well as they say, but -- and the thing about negotiations that I've learned is sometimes you start a term and the ones you're furthest ahead on are the ones you're the furthest behind on at the end of the term. And it's things that are completely out of our control. An Indigenous government might want to just take some more time at that particular point in the process, and we have to sit there and wait, which is what needs to happen. So while I want to move as quickly as we can on these files, that being said we're only one of three parties at the table. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And that is understandable, so I won't continue to push on that one. But just moving one item down on the same page in the business plan, exploring options to support economic reconciliation. Certainly, I was -- I had the privilege of sitting in on the Indigenous economic forum that occurred in April, and I was very excited by what I was hearing there. And I just note that the -- again, like, speaking to measures and targets, the measures that we have here are a number of funding agreements. And I don't think we've really identified a target in terms of what are we trying to achieve with those funding agreements, because we could have a lot of funding agreements and not really be achieving the aims that we're looking to. So I guess I have two questions on this one.

One is whether the Council of Leaders was approached and spoken to about this specific item and given the opportunity to provide some opinion as to what we should be trying to achieve together and whether we have -- whether the department has any comments on sort of development of targets recognizing what we discussed earlier that, you know, I do recognize the business plans were put together quite quickly, but I would like to hear from the department as to kind of what they're working in terms of fleshing out this idea. Thanks.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.

Thank you. When we talk about economic reconciliation, we need to approach that from a number of fronts. We are working on an Indigenous procurement policy. We do have agreements such as with the economic agreement with the Tlicho -- the exact name escapes me at this moment. We are also working on the UNDRIP Implementation Act action plan. And I expect that there would be economic aspects identified in there. We are working with the Council of Leaders and the economy has been flagged as one of the major issues that the Indigenous governments want to address this term. And so I'm excited about that. And so at the upcoming meeting, we're going to be having some in-depth discussions about that and how we can work together going forward. There's a recognition across the board by GNWT, by Indigenous governments, by the general public that we are in a transition phase right now with the diamond mines maturing and that we need to ensure that we have opportunities in the future. And so like I always say, we can't do that alone, we need to work with the Indigenous governments, and that's the plan. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll leave with a comment, and that is just that, you know, I see the business plan as a live document. I know that there's going to be updates brought to it every year. And so I just hope that Cabinet and the Premier can kind of work with the Council of Leaders, identify some targets that we're going to work towards so we can be focused in implementation of our priorities. And I'll just keep hammering back on that focus item we -- if we're not focused, if we're trying to do everything, I think it's going to be much harder to achieve our goals. So that's my comments for now, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much on this section.

Thank you. Is there any further questions? I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too want to add and support the engagements both at the federal level and the territorial level with the other Indigenous organizations. An economic reconciliation is a common drive. One standard chapter within these claims that could be allowed to build on so you have a common ground of engagement to economic reconciliation would be that permitted activities within these different land claims, which allows expenditure of capital. And it could be done through a co-partnership arrangement. So that door can be opened to do a number of things for economic reconciliation. It could allow the claimant corporations to meet this government halfway through various initiatives. So I would suggest that the department familiarize themselves with the chapter on permitted activities. So that's more of a recommendation or a suggestion.

My question is related to the Ottawa office. And what are the intentions of utilizing the office in Ottawa to its fullest potential and help mitigate or bridge the gap with federal engagements with this organization as well as joint cooperative organizations with the claimant corporations? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so there is an office in Ottawa that is leased by the GNWT. There has been a position associated with that office. That is proposed as a reduction, that position. But we have a number of years left on that lease. And so we are looking at how to best utilize that space, and there are discussions happening. I know that the space is used by Indigenous governments, by negotiators, by Regular Members. I used the office myself as a Regular Member. So we definitely see the value in it. We want to be able to bring federal Ministers into our space in Ottawa, take them out of their element a little bit. So there are plans for that office. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. It's 5 to six. If there's no further questions, I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.

In your business plan on page 88, it says here integrated service delivery and it says here the description of work. But I just wanted to ask that -- in the business plan, page 89 -- or 88, can the Minister explain what this integrated service delivery model is?

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.

Sure, thank you. So I'm not sure where this is contained in this document but -- relative to where we are now, but integrated service delivery is a way of doing business where you design and deliver programs and services for the person. You don't design them in a way that is most efficient or, rather, most convenient for government. You design it with the convenience of the person in mind so that they can actually access all of the services they need easily. And so we are looking at various ways of doing that. Initially, there was a thought that we would just start integrating services across government. Through looking at the issue, working with outside contractors and working internally, it was determined the best way to go was to focus on an issue first. So that's why we are focusing on homelessness first, to work to integrate services for that population. We're also looking at creating sites around the territory, likely in regional centres where we're going to be co-locating services as well. So that's the next step. So these are some of the things that we're doing under integrated service delivery. And the reason it was brought into the Premier's office is because we need someone -- we need the authority to force departments to integrate their services. When I was the Minister of ECE and the Minister of Justice, there was even issues getting ECE and Justice to work together. So that is why that is in here. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.