Caroline Wawzonek
Deputy Premier
Statements in Debates
Well, so, again, Mr. Speaker, this is an the area of the arts, it's an area with joint responsibility between ECE and ITI. So it's not a simple question that I have the opportunity to say yes or no to. It's a question to which there needs to be discussion between us, between the two departments, as well as with the various councils and commissions that already exist. The arts program, the film commission for example. You know, and determining what it is that the community would benefit most from. I can say I've had inquiries to my office under ITI from members of the arts community in this...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having a sense of where some questions go because it gives a chance for those of us working multidepartmentally to have some conversations and thanks to the folks at Health and Social Services, I can note there are in fact five territorial family violence shelters across different regions of the Northwest Territories. And I'm also pleased to note that given that these are territorial resources, that travel can be provided for women and children who live in communities outside of one with a shelter and no one should ever think that not having a...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as of the moment well, the arts program does work with partners across Canada. They are working also internationally at this point. There's been showcases of NWT arts products at the WAG, in Edmonton, and internationally at the British Museum. So there's quite a lot happening in the recent couple of years to try to promote and increase awareness of the incredible arts that we have here.
That said, the demographic information that we have is that at this time, a majority of the artwork is still being sold here within the Northwest Territories. I mean, I can...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this time, to my knowledge, there is no equivalent legislation in the Northwest Territories akin to the Clare's Law system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, I don't necessarily take the view that the appeals process, the number of appeals nor the success of appeals, necessarily gives us a lot of clear information that I can then apply to the staffing process itself. Mr. Speaker, I spent many years working in the criminal justice system where there were often appeals, and they were not always very successful. And it doesn't necessarily tie back to what's happening in the appeal court represents what should be happening at the front end. I don't know that it's much different here. What's happening at the...
Mr. Speaker, there's no place for retaliation in the human resources processes of the in the Government of the Northwest Territories. I believe that my office is very accessible, and I hope that it is. I've had many MLAs reach out to me and individuals who often felt that they wanted to raise a concern that they couldn't raise somewhere else. I hope that that continues. There is no place for retaliation. There's no place for that kind of favoritism. And if there's an opportunity to speak to someone to work through something to identify an issue to confirm if there's been something that's not...
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to make that commitment. Again, I'm not sure if it will qualify as an essential route unless we can describe our mental health as an essential service to Whitehorse, Madam Chair. But there's certainly no harm in asking what it would entail to bring it back and if there's anything to be done, I'll bring it back to the House to let people know. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's no impropriety in the sharing of information that again, I've reviewed both of the redacted and unredacted versions and I spoke to the department. And it's very clear that when there's correspondence going between levels of government, between governments, between government officials, while we may well want to share the efforts and the work that we are doing, for example in a remediation economy, a number of letters were I believe tabled here in the House in order to put forward the kind of advocacy that is happening between governments. That...
Madam Chair, on the right is Jamie Koe. He is ADM at the Department of Finance. And on the left is Terence Courtoreille. He is director at the Management Board Secretariat.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The navigators are the first point of contact but they're not the last point of contact. Madam Chair, there are government staff and government employees in all of these communities. There are senior members from various departments who have been on the front lines from day one, and they will continue to be there. And if direction simply needs to be given to them to say, you know, you will acting outside of your specific department, I fully expect that, in fact, they've already been doing that as part of their role within the disaster assistance policy and its enactment...