R.J. Simpson

I can send those off and request feedback from the standing committee, but the plan right now is really to have it community-driven and not have it necessarily dictated. That being said, there has to be some sort of structure around it, so we can definitely collaborate in that sense. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A call for expressions of interest will be released in April. Any proposal will be looked at by a men's healing fund committee based on the application guidelines that we are developing. That work is under way.

Just like anything, we look at what's the need and weigh all of the different competing priorities across the GNWT, and we staff accordingly. Right now, there is a manager in the office who is also an employment standards officer; there are three inspectors; and there is a finance, collections, and information officer. In 2020, one of the inspector positions was vacant, and for the last six months or so of 2020, the finance position was also vacant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Absolutely. It's a public document. I'm sure it's available somewhere in hard copy possibly; maybe it's up in the offices. I'm not sure, but I'll make sure that it is nice and visible so the Member can find it. I will share it directly with him, as well.

We do have, like I mentioned, the small community employment program, which does just that. It puts money into communities to create jobs. I will also note that this is one of the reasons that I wanted to have a look and review of the Income Assistance program. The Member mentioned a few times that maybe it's easier to just not work than to work, and then perhaps, that's keeping people on the couch, so to say. Is there a way that we can use those programs to help people get passed that point, get over the welfare wall, as they say? That's something else that we're doing. Again, there's a...

I always remember when I was a relatively new MLA and the Premier stood up at that time and said there's more jobs than people to fill them in the territory. I never really thought about it that way, but that really is the truth. That's why we bring in thousands of people a year to do work. What we really need to do is ensure that our northern residents are trained to get those jobs. We might still need people from the South. We likely will, but that's okay as long as we're keeping money in the North and northern people are working.

In 2015, ECE completed with the Conference Board of Canada a...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following three documents: "Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 4-19(2): Report on the Review of the 2018-2019 Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission Annual Report;" "Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 5-19(2): Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories;" and "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 559-19(2): FASD Support Services in NWT Correctional Facilities." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is still quite early in the process. Of course, we want to use the results of reviews to inform how we want to go forward. I think that it has been maybe six or seven years now that this program has been running in different forms. Still, a lot has been learned. I think we can see that there have been some issues with the program over the past few years. We have seen the length of it is a problem. It's probably not the best program to be run in the North. We will try and avoid those pitfalls. That being said, we want this to be community-driven and really empower local communities to come...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With all the talk about outhouses and A New Day program, it feels like I am back in the 18th Assembly. As the Member noted, the contract for A New Day program was a four-year contract that ends at the end of March. The Department of Justice will not be renewing that contract. The contractor has been informed of this. The plan is to transform the program into more of a community-driven model and making that money available on an application basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just saw the Member's questions earlier today, and I already started those conversations with the department to figure out if there is a way that we can get that information public.