Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Madam Chair. We don’t have the list of all of the friendship centres with us right now. We can get it to committee, I believe there are five, but we will provide that to the Members. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In all honesty, I believe that these funding levels have been in place for many years. I can't say exactly how many years, but I do know that it's more than the last Assembly. They're on the last year of a three-year term agreement, and I think that it is time that we look at them. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Single Window Service Centres used to be just services that were provided by the Government of the Northwest Territories. In recent years, I think it was just in the last year, if I'm correct, or the last two years, the federal government has asked us if they could be a part of that picture, as well, because not only do our small communities not know what services the GNWT provides, they don't know what the federal government provides, as well. They are actually a partner in the services that are available that the service centre windows have access to. The federal...

Madam Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Katrina Nokleby will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference in Toronto, Ontario. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We do save the royalties received for a period of one year, because we are still, and any Indigenous government that would like to sign on to devolution is welcome to do that, we're one party of it. We don't see ourselves as the controller. I see myself as one party. Then, after a year, we bring it back to the Intergovernmental Council and we let all Indigenous governments around the table decide what is going to be done with that funding. So, again, it is specific money delegated for Indigenous governments that sign on to devolution, and we're still open to having as...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Before devolution went on, we had approached all of the Indigenous governments; before my time, so this is my understanding. We approached all of the Indigenous governments, gave them an offer to sign on. Those who signed on to devolution and agreed to be part of it share in the royalties that are obtained from devolution. Those who chose not to sign on do not get the devolution shares, but they might also get portions within their own self-government agreements or land claims, or just their own assets; but the devolution is specifically for those who signed on to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a few different reasons, but the biggest reason that I understand is that some people, to this day still, believe that the GNWT has no place in any negotiations, and so therefore they refuse to sign on because they did not want the Government of the Northwest Territories to have any say in land and water issues. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In my opening comments on the mandate, there was a paragraph that says we also recognize that, to better report and meaningfully measure progress, in many cases, we need to establish indicators and improve program evaluation. The work we do towards ambitious goals set in the mandate will include the establishment of new indicators and a greater focus on program evaluation. Madam Chair, as I have said many times, one of my specialties is an accreditation in best practices. Therefore, we are going to be doing more measurable outcomes throughout the GNWT over the next four...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Those are some of the ideas that we are hoping to draw out as we work with employees and partners to identify the factors contributing to retention. I am a social worker, it is kind of close, but I don't deal with blood. The reality is that I am thinking that the fact that we don't have enough healthcare professionals might be one of the biggest issues that we have with that. People do need to have holidays. We do need to keep them. I do believe that GNWT has strict policies on those things. If we are saying you can't, it is because we don't have enough staff. We need...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The title "What will we do" is "Strengthen community counselling services." Waitlists are regarding that. You can't reduce the wait times for access unless we have other options to do it. This is one that we do have statistics, so we do have a percentage that we want to lower it by, hopefully. We can't lower that until we have stronger peer support groups, until we have managed alcohol groups, all those things that are being implemented before will help us with the wait times. That is why it is at the end. It is because we need all of the other programs and support to...