Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain the process for assessing whether or not a departmental business plan action is effectively addressing a priority of this House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the point of having the business plans is exactly to provide a venue and a vehicle for doing this exact work, providing us a four-year timeline so that this House can actually and effectively look at whether or not the department is achieving the business plan as set out, whether or not they should be questioned during the course of main estimates, whether or not the funding that's being proposed in main estimates aligns to what they're seeing in the business plans. The Department of Finance does set out a template. We do have expectations of what goes in that template, and that includes if there are annual evidence-based progress, performance measures, so on. So, you know, again, I'm not going to stand here, Mr. Speaker, and go into great detail, but that is really what the foundational purpose of those business plans is, and they're meant to be a vehicle and a tool for being held to account in this House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me how many of the core departments, agencies, health authorities, and educational councils have monitoring and evaluation staff to effectively select priorities that align with the GNWT mandate and priorities of this House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an area, Mr. Speaker, where it's, I think, good to acknowledge that only a few short years ago we had very few evaluative staff in the service of the public service, and we certainly have increased our roster over the last few years and increased the focus through initiatives such as government renewal which really does expect all departments to participate in monitoring and evaluation. So, at present, Mr. Speaker, we have seven different departments and agencies who have their own embedded staff, but in the absence of that, Mr. Speaker, we do work with the policy staff. We, being the Department of Finance, do work with policy staff with individual departments and further are looking to find ways to continue to broaden and strengthen the training so that folks can undertake this work, whether as a specialized entity or within their own roles as policy staff. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre -- or Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We look so much alike.
Mr. Speaker, many of the actions that are purported to address trauma are about staff training. Some have targets about the number of times a committee meets. Can the Minister provide rationale about how these sorts of actions directly impact the root causes of trauma? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to start by saying that the number of times a committee meets doesn't address the root causes of trauma, and that's certainly to say right now -- I'll certainly be more than happy to go back to the department and through the business planning, overseeing that we do make sure that our commitments are more clear than simply the number of times a committee meets.
With respect to training, though, Mr. Speaker, the frontline public service staff -- well, all public service staff, those writing policies, those interacting with individuals, those who are trying to direct the work of their departments, having them being able to provide a truly trauma-informed lens on the work that they do is fundamental. And so to that effect, Mr. Speaker, I would defend the efforts of trying to make sure that every single member of the public service understands the root causes of trauma, their interactions with people who may have experienced trauma, and their role, indeed, in preventing trauma and healing trauma. So, you know, happy to talk further to the Member about some of the elements that I acknowledge might not be getting to that, but certainly with respect to trauma, I do hope that our public service continues to take it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
