Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is the relevant activity to ask this question on the executive office and the operational expenditure summary to support that office.
Is there anticipation for further increases in the budget to work with the Indigenous Government Council on upcoming new emerging concerns, if we can use that word. Like, for example, our economy is going down because of this and this and the oil field is shutting down, the diamond mines are shutting down, so we really need to emphasize a united approach towards getting the voice out to Ottawa. And it's really complimentary to see this office and this Minister taking the IGs down to Ottawa like last October. So is there any additional monies to support those additional lobbying efforts between this government and the federal government? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And there is, it's in a future activity, the Indigenous and intergovernmental relations activity, which is about three or four in the future here. But yeah, I can assure the Member that there is. Thank you.
Thank you. See no further questions, please turn to page 120 -- oh sorry, I have the Member for Monfwi.
Yes, thank you. It says here, Premier's office provides Premier and the Ministers' office with political communication, strategic operation, advice and coordinations and, you know, and all related to political commitment. And in here in the business plan, it says, you know, part of the mandate is to encourage private -- or not encourage, not there, but where was it? Okay, no, that's okay, but still, okay. You know, encourage private investment in housing by reducing administrative and regulatory barriers. That's, you know, the mandate. The target, one of the targets is EIA, MACA and Housing NWT agree on the key issues affecting lands availability and jointly engage.
I think there is some overlapping of services provided. So, you know, first, the lands issues, I thought it was dealt by ECC. And here MACA is mentioned. I know, we all know, you know, there's a lot of duplication of programming services by MACA and ECC, Infrastructure. Had the Minister ever consider dissolving, dissolving MACA? Dissolving some of the Infrastructures department? Decentralizing jobs to save, you know, I mean, we're in debt and then, you know, municipal and communities affairs or community government operations, you know, O and M maintenance and operations. Some of that responsibility falls on the infrastructure as well.
You know, it could be identified as part of the infrastructure, even with the road maintenance. So, there's two. So, I just wanted to ask the Minister if have they ever considered, maybe not right now, you know, we can't leave our colleague without a portfolio. So, but maybe for the 21st Legislative Assembly for the upcoming, consider dissolving some of these departments, amalgamating and decentralizing because I keep saying that, you know, and then you provide advice and everything. And it says here, you know, working with the Indigenous government and we've been asking for Tlicho administrative region too, so. Some of those can -- you know, once we're granted the administrative region, I am sure we can take on some of those. You know, it can go to our region.
Like even you said, you know, with the land claims, maybe 20 years from now we may not need GNWT. So I think now is the time to start amalgamating and dissolving some of these departments because people are kind of confused. They don't know who to go to, who to turn to because of land issues because there's some mentioned in the MACA and then some in the ECC and, you know, department of public works. We're all familiar with department of public works, not with the infrastructure. Transportations. So, you know, all those from the old days. So, now to the infrastructure, it just -- it created a lot of confusion and a lot of duplications. And I know that, you know, prior to 1999 or prior to Nunavut, we had 6,000 employees. Now even after Nunavut, we still have 6,000 GNWT employees. I don't know what happened there, who -- a lot of jobs were created.
So I am just asking, is there a planning place that the Minister -- we've done it in the 19th, where ECC and lands department, you know, we separate that. So, I am sure we can do it again, dissolve MACA, infrastructure, reorganize again, you know, to make program and services delivery, to operate more effectively and efficiently. Because right now, it's like we're all over the place and we don't even know who to contact. Here, it says, you know, like EIA, MACA, you know, and ECC deals with lands. And it's, you know, and engagement with the Indigenous government, service integrations, all that, you know, it's in there. So I just wanted to ask the Minister, is there a plan in place or all the Ministers are talking about it; are you guys -- in your meetings, have you ever talked about getting rid of some of those departments? Thank you.
I will go to the Minister of Executive Indigenous Affairs.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So, first, I will say if Members are aware of any duplication where we have two government departments doing the same job, please let us know. Those are the kind of efficiencies I'd be happy to find and get rid of. If there's a complete duplication, we don't need that.
In terms of the amalgamation, I am not looking at any amalgamations or dissolving any departments this term. That would have to be a decision for the next Assembly. As I've said before, I've seen that a couple of times now, and there is a lot going on, there's a lot to do, and that would take a lot of our energy away from the actual work that needs to happen on the ground for the benefit of the people of the territory. That being said, I do see areas of our government where I wonder why is that in that department. And there's been a few changes here and there with the service integration. We have taken on some files from other departments. And so in small ways, there are changes to what we're doing. But we're not looking at wholesale -- we're not looking at dissolving departments. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member from Monfwi. Okay, thank you. Well, that will be the next -- that will be the goal of the next government, hopefully.
Okay, because, you know, like -- don't worry, you're not going to be unemployed.
I feel for him. Premier, I do apologize. Because he's sitting right across from me and he's like red, you know. His face is just flushed, so. Premier, I am sorry, I do apologize about that.
But, you know, the reason why I bring it up is that duplication of positions or duplication of jobs, services provided, because, you know, like, in Behchoko alone, in Edzo too, we have infrastructures that are over 50 years old. You know, we have water pipes that we talked about, we mentioned it many times. And we asked MACA before and MACA said, well, that's up to the community government. And there's the infrastructure department. And that's their -- you know, their building. And they're responsible for many of these things. And they said it's not their responsibility. So whose responsibility is it? Like, MACA said it's community government. Well, we get the money from -- based on the funding formula, we get the money from MACA. And yet it's not enough. That's not going to fix up our aging infrastructure, fthe waterlines in Edzo which is going to cost over, I think it was estimated about over $40 million, or somewhere in there. And then in Behchoko alone, now just recently we had issue with the water line. And since Monday, students were home until today. So today, students went back, elementary school students. We already have issues with attendance. Now that young people took an additional three days off. So who's, you know, like, I mean, we ask him he's going to say well, it's up to the community government. It's not, you know. And/or the Ministers, they always say well, community does get money from the federal government. FYou know, that's an excuse that they always give us. So that's why I am asking. Because that's why I am saying, you know, like, there's so many duplications we don't even know who to ask, who to go to. Like, he's not going to -- he doesn't have the capacity, or he doesn't -- he doesn't have the authority to say yes to fix up our aging infrastructure. And over there, finance, you know, the infrastructure. So, and he does infrastructure too. But in the -- see, like, who do you go to? We know he's part of our department, he does transportation. And he doesn't have the authority to fix our aging infrastructure.
So now I know that in my region, because of the Indigenous government, I know one of their goal is to -- part of their cultural, their goal is to fix up those aging infrastructure. So which is good, they're going to do that. But at this time, we're still under the territorial authority. Nobody is willing to step in and help with the aging infrastructure in my community.
It's not just that, it's also the health centre, in Behchoko, in Whati, you know, and in Wekweeti as well. So that's why I am just saying that, you know, like, who do we go to? There's so many duplications that it's not fun anymore. Some people, they don't even know who to contact. Who do we contact? Even, you know, around here. That's what I hear from a lot of people, even my constituents, that's what they're saying. So yeah, so that's about it. I have no more questions on that but it's just that it's duplication. So maybe it can be one of the mandates for the next fiscal year is to amalgamate, you know, dissolve some departments. That would be, it would be nice to see that for the next government coming in, in 2027. Thank you.
Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, do you want to answer that?
Sure, I won't mention the departments and what they do, but I mean when it comes to municipal infrastructure, it's the municipality's responsibility. And, you know, in Hay River we were on boiled water advisory for quite a while because we needed a new water treatment centre. I know that Inuvik has -- their utilidor needs replacing. So every community is facing this, and the GNWT is also facing this. We talked about electronic health records today. A new system for that is, you know, north of a $100 million. Like the replacement that we need to do of our infrastructure across the territory is extraordinary. And so there is nowhere in the territory where you see all new infrastructure, all perfectly well working infrastructure. It's a constant battle to try and keep up with, you know, the maintenance and the replacements. And we're far behind. And I travel around Canada saying that we have an infrastructure deficit and that we need more support from the federal government. So the GNWT gets money, we take care of our infrastructure. The municipalities get money, they take care of their infrastructure. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Okay, thank you. No further questions, please turn to page 129.
Executive and Indigenous Affairs, executive council offices, $4,312,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Members, we will have the Minister responsible for the Status of Women join the witness table for the next key activity, gender equity.
Does the Minister wish to change the witnesses at the table?
Thank you. Moving on to gender equity, beginning on page 131 with information items on page 133 and 134.
Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I understand that the NAP funding, and I am sorry, I just want to make sure I get the acronym right, the national action plan to end gender-based violence has been brought in from other departments into gender equity and EIA as a central location for that funding. And that NAP funding is 50 percent funded by Canada. And it's my understanding that the funding that we're currently receiving is time-bound and is going to expire at the end of 2026-2027 fiscal. And on top of that, you know, the historical funding to the NGOs that are subscribing to funding under this piece is not unsubstantial. It's not insignificant. So I am curious what planning is underway or starting to be looked at to fill this gap that we know is going to come in a year's time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister responsible for the Status Women.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that's a really important question and thank the Member for asking that question. The national action plan to end gender-based violence, we signed an agreement in 2023 and it was a five-year agreement, but it was a 10-year funding plan. And at last July's FPT, federal-provincial-territorial table for -- status of women table, we had that conversation with our provinces and with Canada. How are we, how is the federal government going to extend this national action plan for additional five years, because it was a 10-year commitment. So it's really important that we continue these conversations at the FPT table, and all provinces and territories are advocating that we continue with this gender-based violence funds. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, so I am just going through some of the substantiation that the department has given us on some of the organizations that get this funding. It's not lost on me that the, like, amounts are not enormous when you look at them on a line item basis, but they are quite important to each of these organizations that receive them. So I am happy to hear that the Minister responsible is having these conversations with her colleagues from across Canada. But yeah, until there's a new agreement signed, I am going to keep pestering the Minister responsible on this one because it's very crucial to both NGOs, and now that I am looking back over our list, Indigenous governments. So that's more of a comment really, but I do have another question, Madam Chair.
The complement of staff has doubled from three staff members to six. Can the Minister responsible please give a substantiation for this? Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister responsible for Status of Women.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The family information liaison unit through Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women is one full-time position, and there's an additional position that's a coordinator position, two full-time positions. And with this unit itself, it travels throughout the Northwest Territories and it talks to families, especially those affected by missing family members or those that have been murdered through gender-based violence or any other circumstances. So there's a lot of work that the family information liaison unit does and a lot of travel it conducts, and we commonly call it FILU, but family information liaison unit is the additional position. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member for Great Sleeves.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That is possibly the cutest acronym I've ever heard come out of the GNWT. It sounds like a fuzzy little critter. But I think we're all a little bit tired and loopy at this point, Madam Chair. I apologize.
But I am curious if FILU has, in its travels then, sort of started to take some data or having some sense of the scale and scope of gender-based violence emergency in this territory. I know the Minister is well aware. I am wondering, are we starting to put together any kind of database picture on the need for supports throughout the territory and the gender-based violence sphere? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I defer that question to the deputy minister, please?
Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think when it comes to the family information liaison unit -- I am trying to avoid that acronym now -- It's still fairly early days when it comes to data collection. A lot of the emphasis of the work to date has really been around traveling to communities, outreach, etc. I think there's a lot of work to do to understand trends and ongoing needs. So these positions are intended to help with just that understanding of scale and what the needs are, particularly among some of the most impacted people in the territory.
I think we're also in a period of staff renewal. So I think once we get these positions fully staffed, we'll be able to perhaps better answer some of those questions that the Member has asked. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for that context. It's very good to know. I mean, the good news story here is, Madam Chair, that gender equity sitting in EIA means that with the recent work of EIA to bring in more pieces around NGOs into the fold of things that they're trying to understand and get more of a viewpoint into boots on the ground, the NGOs in our territory, the Native Women's Association, YWCA, have been doing work on this for, as the Premier noted yesterday, for decades. So I think there's some really good touch points that can exist once this unit is staffed up. And I would really encourage the Minister responsible, the department as a whole, to work carefully with NGOs in this space. More of a comment but would love the Minister's feedback as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister responsible for Status Women.
I am not sure if this mic is working here, but I think the efforts to understand NGO needs -- and this is something that the Premier and EIA are working on. But as the Minister for Status of Women, having these conversations with the Native Women's Association, with the YWCA, with all our NGOs that work with gender-based violence or supportive living components, it's important to understand these needs and have these conversations and also have the face-to-face meetings and visiting their facilities. It's really important that we continue to do that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Seeing no further questions, please turn to page 132, Executive and Indigenous Affairs, gender equity, $4,938,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
We will now invite the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs to return to the witness table for the remaining key activities. Okay, thank you.
Moving on to governance and service integration on page 135, with information items on pages 137 and 138. Are there any questions.
Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The first question I wanted to ask is, given the role of governance and service integration, have there been any lessons learned on structural or governance changes needed in order to enhance the way that the GNWT operates across departments and agencies?
Thank you. I will go to the Minister for Executive and Indigenous Affairs.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, lots. I will go to the deputy minister through you, Madam Chair, for some more detail on that. Thanks.
Thank you. We'll go to deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I would have to echo the Premier. There have been lots of lessons learned, some of them hard won. Some of them we continue to learn, frankly, every day. One of the most challenging things that we are struggling against is siloing of our own structure. Another is the fact that every organization, it seems if you create an organization of three people, it comes up with its own culture and it's hard to break that down. So we've put in place mechanisms such as new assistant deputy minister committees and working groups that respond to that committee to help try to increase lateral communication across and among departments and agencies and, of course, build that information up towards deputies and ultimately to Ministers for greater accountability. That's just one example of how we've tried to counteract some of those challenges that we've observed. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciate that. I appreciate, frankly, that there just is work going on to address that. I think it's something that government gets criticized a lot about. So I think it's good that we have people who are putting minds to how to address these issues of siloing.
Just on that note, I am curious if we've put a lot of thought into generally -- the deputy minister mentioned culture developing and how that can happen. I wonder if we put a lot of thought into the organizational culture of the GNWT and how we can shift that culture, where necessary, and as much as possible, towards service orientation.
So an example I am going to give is an issue that I was questioning the Premier on the floor about just the other day, about the various different departments that help people and their families with disabilities and how we've had a lot of success with EIA's introduction of the ISD unit and how that could be helpful for persons with disabilities. So the answer that I got back was the health department is working on this much wider effort but the situation we're dealing with is there was recommendations made in 2023 to change the way services were delivered. And so I would think if we have a service-oriented culture, we might be thinking of ways that we can solve some of these problems in the interim, knowing that we are working on something that's a wider effort that's going to take many years. What can we do now to help people and help better integrate our services.
So the Minister doesn't have to answer specific to that issue, but I am just curious how we're trying to shift our culture towards helping people as much as possible and kind of shifting away from these what feel like bureaucratic answers when you ask, you know, well, what are you doing to help persons with disabilities? And the answer is, well, we've got this much bigger review going on so it's going to be several years of that. And what ends up happening is people sit without being able to access those services in an integrated way for many years, in this case six years. So it's clear to me that we need to be thinking about kind of solutions-oriented work. So a lot of words I just shared there, but I think that the deputy minister gets where I am going with this. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I will start, then we can go to the deputy minister. But what the Member is talking about is what we're aiming for. In the past, there have been efforts to integrate services across government. They've all failed. And so the approach we're taking is to have focused efforts in one area, which was recommended by a third party. There was an extensive report, and the recommendation was to start on a defined area and learn lessons from there that then we could expand across government. And in the end, the ultimate place we land might be a Service NWT, a department that would be sort of the public facing government department where you would go for whatever you need from government. To try and do that all at once is not feasible. Things take a long time in government at the best of times, and when you are a small government and you're trying to do a bunch of different things, things can take much longer. But we want to do it right and we want to learn those lessons and then have -- I don't want to say a centre of excellence, but these units are like incubators where we look, what can we learn from this. And we have the five regional centres. There's ISDYK, which is the integrated service delivery in Yellowknife, formerly known as integrated case management, which is really more of a pathfinding unit. And then in four other communities, three right now, I believe the fourth will be set up soon, we have integrated service teams, which are actually officials from different departments and NGOs who get together and who really work together to try and support residents. But I can hand it over to the deputy minister for this. It's actually a very operational question. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go to deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And yeah, maybe just to build off of what the Premier mentioned, I think to try to tackle the Member's question directly around organizational culture, it is a difficult problem to solve. I think, you know, we look at it through a number of different lenses, getting information to employees, helping people understand sort of what the organizational mission is and where they fit into the bigger picture is very important. And I am not convinced that we've been doing the best job of that. And it's a conversation that we had recently at the deputy's table.
Training, of course, ongoing training, and thinking about service integration specifically. We've been working on training and outreach to staff to tell them what that looks like and where they fit into that picture going forward.
And the last piece that I think is important is leadership at all levels, whether it's at a deputy level or at a director or a manager or supervisor level, it's making sure you sit down with your staff, let them know what's going on, answer questions, and make sure that they're part of the bigger picture.
As the Premier mentioned, these service integration teams are important opportunities for us to learn. The main goal for these in the short-term is get staff working together, focused on homelessness, but identifying barriers that make it difficult for them to work together, and then provide those barriers to the organization so that we can remove them from frontline staff. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate those answers and do always appreciate chatting with the deputy minister about these kinds of things, because he gives very thoughtful answers to these kinds of questions. And I appreciate that we're thinking this kind of thing through. And I would just put a plug in there that, you know, when I raised this issue and identified this unit as a great example for the issue that I was identifying with persons with disabilities, I would like to put a plug in there that I think that that's an area that that could be looked at next.
And that was going to be one of my questions was, what programs is EIA looking to bring under a single window system through the ISD unit and how will that support some of the objectives of our mandate? Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Maybe I will just go right to the deputy minister for this one. Thanks.
Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That's a great question. And actually, under the government renewal initiative, the EIA's evaluation is intended to look at the data from the past years for the integrated case management, now ISD Yellowknife, to look at where those clients have been brushing up against other GNWT services, regardless of what department or agency they may be. And that will potentially give us a very strong clue as to what we should be expanding towards over and above homelessness. Thank you, Madam Chair.
