Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When something comes up that is a matter for the Legislative Assembly or more of an MLA matter like this, it's always been a free vote. I don't see any reason why I would change that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the age-old matter of cost is always an issue. Does Cabinet have a particular issue on cost or size of this change in the Assembly? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is not within the administrative authority of the Government of the Northwest Territories to decide. When the Assembly says it wants more Members in the House, then the budget for government at large goes up. So if there's more Members, hopefully we'll have at least one more Minister to share the workload, which would mean another office, some staff. So there will be cost implications, but we'll take that when it comes, if it comes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Given that I have the floor, and certainly the attention of the Speaker, would he be able to articulate the current position based on the report for the Member for Hay River North. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. I don't know if the Premier -- sorry, thank you. Mr. Premier will not be answering any questions as an MLA. Should you wish to ask the Member from Hay River North, there's the opportunity to talk to the individual in the Members' lounge or his office or your office.
Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to now ask questions of the justice Minister.
So given that the regulation of private security firms in the NWT would require the establishment of a new regulator and the appropriation of government funds, so it would not be able to be accomplished through a Private Member's bill, can the justice Minister commit to begin the process through the Department of establishing legislation to regulate the private security profession in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe I've said many times in this House that our approach to legislation in the 20th Assembly has been to take the priorities of this 20th Assembly and focus on those legislative initiatives that align with our priorities. Currently, there's no initiative being undertaken that directly relates to the issue that the Member is raising. If the 21st Assembly has this as one of their priorities, the Department of Justice would be happy to continue on the work in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So has Justice done any analysis of potential liabilities or repercussions to the government of contracting unregulated private security firms to protect government-run operations? For example, if a resident or a client or a security guard was harmed on the job. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in our contracting guidelines, there are very common clauses within our contract documents that address those types of questions and considerations, and they will very depending on the situation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you Minister of Justice. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So can the justice Minister confirm that the department's position is that the department is not liable or does not bear responsibility for the fact that we don't have regulation or standards for private security in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I cannot provide legal -- or advice or analysis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the questions are for Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
On MACA's website, it states that the Northwest Territories has 33 communities that are designated authorities - hamlets, villages, or cities located in five regions. With that in mind, can the Minister confirm if that information is correct? Thank you.
Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as I know, we still have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We all know that there's still 33 communities but the designations. So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister provide the legal or policy instrument used to define a "region", quote, of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not have the policies or procedures in front of me that -- or how we get to the regions and how we design them. I will look into this for the Member and get back to her on that question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member for Monfwi.
I will do a written statement. Can the Minister confirm the process used to change, update, or establish new regions of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, with that much detail we'll get the information and get back to the Member. I believe the last time regions were changed was over 20-some years ago, so I will have to get back to the Member on how that happened the last time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I listened keenly on the Minister of Health and Social Services' Minister's statement today on the public administrator. It seems to me that the biggest achievement from the last -- or the short tenure of the administrator has been the Dehcho patient journey. Now we're seeing a promised Yellowknife patient journey. My question is, is it going to be one patient journey per region per year? Is it going to be a five-year thing where we get to one at a time? Because we urgently need healthcare reform now, and we can't wait five years for every region to have a journey. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Dehcho journey was identified because within the concerns and the observations that once we analyzed all the regions, that was where the priority was needed. And due to the amount of residents in the capital and the continuing ongoing concerns with access to primary care, that is how we designated the second -- Yellowknife as the next journey. The remainder of -- like, the Beaufort Delta and the Sahtu, those areas have also already been having projects that have been going on to try to improve access to care. It doesn't necessarily mean they need patient journeys. We will, however, complete the Yellowknife and as we move forward and work with the other regions, whether or not they need designation patient journeys, we will analyze that as they come. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I guess we've just got the two to look forward to and then we'll move on.
Speaking of moving on, another part of the statement was talking about the Mika AI Scribe tool. So my question with this tool that's being touted as innovative as listening to the physicians who have asked for more AI tools and more innovation, we use paper-based charting, Mr. Speaker. That's how we do charting in the hospital system and in the health system. How does an AI help with that? And to that end, is it compatible with our EMR, our outdated EMR that needs replacing? We have this state-of-the-art tool. So how is this AI actually interacting with paper systems and with an outdated electronic medical record system? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. When you're an inpatient, it is a paper file; however, in primary care there are some forms of -- with this tool, it would be uploaded as the information goes into the EMR. However, many of our specialty reports that come back are paper and they're uploaded into EMR so that way it's accessible throughout the EMR. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Finally, the organizational review that was completed last year and the future organizational change to the governance structure of NTHSSA, we've already done these reviews. In fact, many of the recommendations -- or recommendations were made the last time that were ignored. So why are we wasting more time and money on reviews and paying an expensive public administrator to do them when we already have the answers, we're just choosing not to implement them? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sometimes when third parties come in and they make recommendations, it's not necessarily easy to implement those recommendations. And also working within some of the recommendations that were suggested, there were many options and many of the options were to remain status quo. We know that status quo is not the option to do. So what we are taking into account are the recommendations that have been suggested but also working within our system to see where are there other areas that can change as well as structurally. And one of the parts that we are continuing to work on is the NTHSSA and the department and some of that overlap and currently that work is ongoing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to follow up a bit on the line of questioning I had with the Premier earlier. He mentioned that the review of the intergovernmental agreement is going to be done by a contractor; however, the business plan that they just shared with us a few weeks ago says an internal IGCS committee and terms of reference for that review have been established and that they have been meeting regularly to advance the review. So can the Premier just clarify for us is this being done by a contractor or a committee? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the way I understand it, at the last intergovernmental council meeting, we tasked the intergovernmental council secretariat, which is the officials level group representing each of the governments at the intergovernmental council, with developing terms of reference that -- for the review that we could put out to a contractor to actually administer the review. So the intergovernmental council secretariat was working on the terms of reference, on developing the framework to figure out what we need to -- what questions we need to ask, what we need to get the contractors to look into, and then that will be converted into an RFP that will then go out for tender. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Assembly or MLAs have any opportunity to contribute to those terms of reference or at least see them before they're set in stone and put out for RFP? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, once again, the IGC is not the GNWT and so we don't have ultimate say over the final decisions there. That being said, the Members have been contributing to the terms of reference. Every time the Member gets up and talks about the IGC timelines and processes, that information is heard by myself. I relay it to the department that, listen, we're getting some good ideas out of the Assembly, let's ensure that we're feeding these into that process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I will also say that we'll share the RFP with the Member as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that they are listening to us on the floor, and I hope that they've been hearing the comments that have been made by previous standing committees and Members in this House about how it would be appreciated if the IGCS conducted itself more publicly. To that point, Mr. Speaker, will the contractor be engaging with the Assembly and the public and reporting publicly on their findings? Thank you.
Thank you. I will have to get back to the Member. Thanks.
Oral questions. Member from the Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for my favourite health Minister, and it's regarding medical travel or just records in general, similar to the question asked by my colleague from Range Lake, Mr. Speaker.
What type of process -- this is the question: What type of process does the department of health need to go through when referrals are actually lost and they've gone missing? So referrals to medical appointments down south, what type of investigation process, or how do we sort this out. If the Minister can enlighten this House. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from the Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail of the process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
