Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe my questions are for the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, although he has recently passed the responsibility for homelessness on to the Minister of housing, so I'll leave it up to them as to who responds exactly.
But on May 6th, recently the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs convened a meeting of the Yellowknife community partnership committee to discuss challenges associated with homelessness and integrated service delivery, and there were about 40 participants there from -- everywhere from local Indigenous governments and NGOs, GNWT departments, the city of Yellowknife, the RCMP, and lots of representatives from the business community. I noticed that some of the key takeaways included the need to compile realtime individual level data for understanding trends like shelter use and rough sleeping and the need for respectful and meaningful engagement with people who have lived experience with homelessness.
So my first question is given these key learnings and takeaways from the meeting, will this impact or change the approach that's taken by the GNWT this year to encampments that are already starting to appear within our city? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for raising this. We are working -- and trying to work more closely with the NGOs in Yellowknife who are providing critical services. As we move towards integrating more services across government, NGOs are very valuable partners, invaluable partners even. We want to ensure that they are properly supported, that we are hearing from them, that we're working together, and that we're sharing information. And so what we are planning to do is ensure that we have enough shelter space, first of all. We want to ensure that there is enough space for everyone who needs a place to stay, they will have a place to stay. That being said, not everyone wants to stay in a shelter and so we want to ensure that while people have the ability to do what they need to do to get by, that we are not allowing other parts of -- that we're mitigating the negative impacts of encampments. And there could be impacts with, you know, businesses, with -- you know, even with non-profits who need to work, and there might be an encampment nearby and that's causing them issues. So we want to ensure that we mitigate those efforts, but we want to ensure that we're also working with the vulnerable population who's living in these encampments. We want to ensure they're in a place that is safe, that is not disrupting other, you know, nearby neighbours. We all have to get along, and we want to ensure that we're working to minimize any type of conflict that might occur. That being said, we want to -- we don't want to normalize encampments. We can't just have encampments popping up anywhere in the city year after year. And so while this is not new to Yellowknife anymore, we've experienced this before, we are still determining how we're going to get where we need to go so that everyone is satisfied with the outcome. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that answer. I noticed that there is -- there was a goal that came out of this meeting around the need to compile individual name by name data around those who may be sleeping rough or staying in shelters. I wonder if -- are the challenges around that task due mainly to barriers around coordination and technical and computer systems, or are there significant barriers related to Privacy Act legislation? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, all of those things. So, you know, the population of individuals who are unhoused, you know, they come and go. They don't have fixed addresses obviously, and so just knowing where people are at any given time can be difficult. And so that's, you know, the most fundamental issue that we have. There is things like the Health Information Act which is one of our two pieces of privacy legislation here in the territory, and that puts a lot of boundaries around who information can be shared with, who can hold on to that information, and that can make it difficult when we are working with -- you know, working in the government system, you know, working with individuals who might be on the streets. And so that legislation is up for review, and I've had discussions with the Minister of health about that and the need to ensure that our own legislation doesn't get in our way. So that review will take place later this year.
There's also the issue of having computer systems and databases that can talk to each other. And so we have offered NGOs certain software that we're using so that we can all speak in the same language essentially and all share information to better support vulnerable population. However, I understand that the federal government provides, you know, some funds to NGOs as well, and they require them to use a particular software that's different than our software. So, you know, that's an issue that we're going to have to figure out how to overcome as well. So a lot of challenges, but I think that we're actually in a pretty good place here. In my time as an MLA, I've never seen this type of focus on supporting the NGOs sector or homelessness. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also noted the extraordinary involvement of the Yellowknife business community in these meetings, and I've certainly spoken with many business owners myself who are highly motivated to contribute to solutions, including equipping staff to better assist or deal with those experiencing homelessness. So can the Minister explain are there initiatives underway where the GNWT's assisting business owners to take tangible action in the short-term? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we certainly engaged with the business community. For that level of detail, I'm going to have to get back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
