Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I mean, by that philosophy, we would have a trades deputy minister because we support trades or a teachers deputy minister because we want to see more teachers or like-minded thinking. I mean, so why can't it work with managers or program people? I'm not convinced in any way a senior executive needs to do this position in -- nothing's been sold to me as opposed to if you really want languages, why do you need another upper echelon bureaucrat? Because ultimately the other question to it is is it already staffed? Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the position is not already staffed. And the other thing that I think is worthwhile adding in is I do have an assistant deputy minister of trades. Trades are very important, and he is waiting in the back room. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Okay, I'll certainly say touché on that one. But it speaks to the broader point, we should have deputy ministers on every subject -- or ADMs, sorry -- of every subject, whether it's x-ray machines and deputy minister of nursing, and like, every area we have. I just think this is a horrible waste of money. And if we want to really support these, we should be giving them to the communities to inspire community homegrown programs. People don't need another -- another, like I said, upper echelon person. They need program people on the ground. So that's my comment. If I was given an opportunity, which I'm leaning towards the clerk, I would look potentially maybe to a motion to delete if I had a chance to get one. Because I don't think this belongs here. We should be talking serious about doing real things. Thank you. I don't have the number.

Okay. Thank you for your comment. I think it's loaded. Is there any further Members that want to make -- ask questions? Okay, I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

There we go. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so this department is crucial in a -- an important part of our efforts to reduce poverty and give people support and keep people out of the justice system, otherwise known as integrated service delivery. I know that the Premier has made this kind of the centerpiece of what his work in the Premier's office is to bring government together and offer integrated service delivery, eventually moving to a broader service NWT kind of model. But in the meantime, our most vulnerable citizens who need the most support are kind of the first stage of integrated service delivery. So can the Minister speak to how her department is building stronger integrated service delivery in partnership with other departments? Thank you.

I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is going to take me into the income assistance section. So it is absolutely one of our deliverables under or business plan to work collaboratively with the primary's department, and that would take us into working with departments as well, like housing with Minister Kuptana. Within -- and one of the things we talked about quite a bit today was the ability of the new income assistance program to free up some time of the client navigators within the income assistance division so that as they are working with some of our most vulnerable residents, they are able to point to different services and programs that might be available. They're able to form relationships with staff over at housing, for example, and frontline staff over there so that there is a tighter connection between those programs. They are able to work with community partners and form relationships there and find out how they can create these pathways out of poverty together and/or pathways to supports that residents are looking for. So whether that is supports to education, entrepreneurship, or employment, that those pathways are created and are supported for residents of the Northwest Territories. So I would say that is the strongest way that we are working on the beginning steps of integrated service delivery over at education.

Go to the Member for Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is important work, and I think the Minister laid out quite clearly how it works and how it will benefit clients, in particular clients who are, I think -- don't want to stay trapped in poverty certainly or even require these levels of services. I think everyone wants to get back on their feet. So this is -- I do support integrated service delivery. I've always supported integrated service delivery. I've seen how transformative it can be, especially for those who make frequent contact with the criminal justice system. What I think is missing here are some timelines and outcomes. It's fine to say that we're going to kind of -- these are our goals, this is what's going on, we're working with -- it's being led by another department. But surely, there must be some timelines and some goals for the suite of programs that ECE offers to clients that can be measured and they can be accountable for. Is that possible? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is work that we will be doing in conjunction with other departments. And we definitely, as far as income -- or ISD, rather, is concerned or not, the lead on that, and so it requires some collaboration on our part, but we definitely saw it as being important enough to make sure that it was included in the business plans right off the bat. Thank you.

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

Okay, thank you. So as this corporate management also covers policy legislation and communications, earlier this year there was quite a public snafu with communications where an inappropriate meme was shared with the public inadvertently and it had to be pulled down. What steps are we taking to avoid those kind of missteps? This is -- again, lots of communication comes out of this department. It's responsible for a lot of -- like, for language, for culture, for promoting language weeks, culture weeks, all these kind of things. They have to do a lot of communications work. So what are we doing to make sure mistakes like that don't happen again, and are we properly resourced in, you know, vetting -- like, do they have enough staff and resources to properly vet those kind of things before they come forward? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Chair, it was immediately taken down and an apology was immediately issued to residents of the Northwest Territories. And right away, following that, checks and balances were put in place with staff to ensure that something like that did not happen again, and we were able to use our existing resources to make sure that that was done. Thank you.

Thank you. I suppose the question is -- like, and I appreciate that the apology was forthcoming and it was swift. It still made the news, which no communications professional wants. So I'm just wondering if -- I know, again, a lot of work has been done in previous years to centralize communications -- corporate communications, and I have heard anecdotically that perhaps that's -- that hasn't given departments the kind of capacity they were promised. So how is that working from the perspective of ECE in their communications function? Is the centralize -- is the shared communications function serving this department given it has such a large area of responsibility around important communications related to its public policy mandate? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am quite confident that -- I'm quite confident in the work of the communications staff at the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. You know, I hope that they won't be judged on that one incident because there have been a tremendous amount of success stories that have come out of that office, and they work very hard. They have done a lot of beautiful work on behalf of the department and have been well-resourced to be able to do that. They are a team that works exceptionally hard and takes great pride in the work that they do and the importance of the work that they do and are able to work collaboratively with corporate communications while they do that work. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.

So thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to be clear, like I am a big believer in no blame culture, especially when it comes to improvement, continuous improvement. So you blame the problem, you don't blame the person. And in this case, you don't blame the comms people. So I agree with the Minister, they've done great work, and I don't want my comments to be misconstrued as going after individuals or trying to apportion blame to hardworking public servants. I always said we have the best public servants in the biz, and I completely stand by their work. What I am saying is let's look at the problem. This thing happened. Is there a way we can resource these folks so they aren't, you know -- I'm sure they're running up against a lot of deadlines. They're working on a lot of projects. Like I said, this department has a ton of output. I'm just wondering if that shared corporate communications model is effectively serving this department given its high volume of public facing communications. And maybe this is a question more for the deputy minister. Thank you.