Mr. Courtoreille.

Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I very much appreciate that willingness by this unit to sort of be flexible or work with the other initiatives that are underway to sort of change the plan as necessary. I mean, I'll be honest and say my biggest fear about the sort of initial exercise of sorting it into core or non-core services and what's needed and not needed is that we'll just take a big look at everything we're already doing and then ask the question what are people going to miss most if we take it away, and if we feel like people won't notice as much or miss it as much then we'll just sort of take it away because it looks like a cost saving opportunity. But to me, the right approach would be to start with what are we actually trying to accomplish, what are the different possible ways of accomplishing it, are we choosing the right way of accomplishing something, the right way that's most cost efficient, that's most culturally appropriate, the most effective in terms of helping people over the long term with their health. So I mean I offer those as comments that I hope the unit will take to heart and -- because I know often politically, we just look for the -- you know, we look for some easy wins and we look for things that people aren't going to object too strongly against or if people won't notice if we take things away. But I think with health care, we really need to go back to basics in terms of what are we -- what are we trying to accomplish here.

One thing that I wanted to ask about the evaluation framework is that my understanding was that the plan was that after a year, the department would start coming up with some indicators to track, you know, are things getting better, are we having success with our work. But my concern would be that isn't that too late to start tracking things because if we want to see a change over time, if we want to know if the work is improving things, don't we have to start monitoring and tracking the situation now and then we'll see if things change and get better over time. We need to establish the baseline of where we're at now to be able to compare to once, you know, significant changes are made within the system, have things gotten better or have things gotten worse. Is this unit able to help create that kind of baseline now in terms of establishing indicators and starting to monitor them now so we know what our baseline is? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs.

Thank you. First, I'll note that the plan isn't to just see what's easiest to cut without the public noticing for the sake of cutting. The idea is to work to achieve the priorities of this Assembly to improve access to basic health care. And so that's the ultimate goal, And how we get there is going to be determined on, you know, what we find out during this analysis. But I'm not looking for easy, you know, political decisions; I'm looking to improve the healthcare system, whatever that -- whatever that takes. But for the remainder of the question, I'd hand it to Mr. Courtoreille. Thank you.

Mr. Courtoreille.

Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's all for me. I really appreciate those comments and commitments.

Next, I have Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Really appreciate it. My first question -- and forgive me if I'm wrong about this, but I'm not sure that we've been provided with the monitoring and evaluation framework, and I know that Mr. -- sorry, the deputy minister offered to provide a plain language summary. But would we be able to get a commitment simply to just provide a copy of the framework? Thanks.

Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs.

The framework was shared with all MLAs on January 31st. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, and thank you for the reminder. I'll make sure to scan my email inbox. We get so many sometimes, it's easy to forget whether we received something or not.

So, you know, just going on the thread that I was pulling on over the past couple days with the health Minister, you know, one of our top priorities is supporting primary care reform, and certainly there's all sorts of evidence for why this is a worthwhile initiative. And something that I would point out is that we may -- and one of the reasons I was pushing us to kind of define the issue and to better understand what we mean by providing equitable access to health care is that we may, in fact, need to shift resources further into primary care and increase resources that they are -- they're using in the system.

So I'm just wondering can -- you know, when we look at this unit, I think it's been seen as being a unit that's there to kind of reduce fiscal -- reduce spending, improve fiscal health, but would just note that system sustainability involves workplace morale, it involves sustainability in terms of being able to attract and retain workers and, indeed, to achieve our goal of reforming and improving primary care access. So I was just hoping that the Minister or his staff could comment on that and how we're going to be careful that we're not throwing out the primary care baby with the fiscal sustainability bath water. Thank you.

Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs.

Thank you. And so the primary health care reform is the responsibility of health and social services. The department, they are leading that work, and we are here to support that work. We're all here to support each other. And so the work that is being done by this unit can inform that work.

I'll note that, you know, there -- I think there might be a perception, and I hope it's not coming from me because I've never said this, but the idea of this unit is to not just find what we can cut and save some money. It is to make the system sustainable. As the Member mentioned in his latter comments about the things that the system -- that this unit should be contributing to, that's what the unit is contributing to. It's for the healthcare system sustainability at large not just the financial sustainability. So it's also to allow decision makers to have eyes on what's going on in the system. As a Minister for five years now, it's been difficult for me to get a grip on what's going on with the healthcare system because it is so large, there's so many programs, it has grown so rapidly. So, you know, by virtue of having this unit while there is primary health care reform happening, but I -- it's my sense that that's going to give us better eyes on that as well. And so we'll just have a better understanding of what's happening and how to better support -- and as decision makers, as Ministers, how to best support the system going forward. And I'm not sure if Mr. Courtoreille has anything to add so I'll throw it to him as well. Thank you.

Mr. Courtoreille.

Member for Frame Lake.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. That's all my questions for now on this section. Thanks.

Okay. Member for the Sahtu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm in support of this unit and the objectives or the goals set by this unit and, ultimately, it's to make our health care more efficient, more modern in the process. So I look forward to the -- my continued support and the updates provided by the Minister. Mahsi.