R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, no, that is not my intention. I have a responsibility when the House brings forward a motion and recommendations to carefully consider those. I also have a responsibility to ensure that we are operating the government in a responsible manner. I think there's a lot of information that there's a lot of assumptions about what a public inquiry is. Even yesterday, even after I tried to clarify some of the facts around what we can and can't do, there was still assumptions remaining. You know, there was comparisons of our Inquiries Act to the federal Inquiries Act...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the public inquiry is being sold as the only way for the public's voices to be heard and as the only morally upright option that we have. But neither of those are accurate. I caution Members from making this an issue of good versus evil. I think the Member from Hay River South spoke pretty eloquently about his connection to the evacuations and the wildfire season. I have a similar one. It's been two years now where it's been constant disasters, constant evacuations. And when I went door to door, this is the one thing, this was on the top of everyone's list...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So just for the public's awareness and the new Members, when these motions come forward and they ask for a response under 120 days, the government generally abstains so we will be abstaining. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Cabinet will be abstaining from any amendments, or the amendments that we have been made aware of, and reserve the vote until the final motion that committee wants to bring forward is put together. I understand there may be a number of amendments and so we'll be abstaining on all of them. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Followup letter for Oral Question 320(1), Implementation of the Recommendations of Strengthening Supports for Non-Profit Sector. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Friday, February 23rd, 2024, I will present Bill 2, Missing Person's Act, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'll do my best of course. The Minister of Finance isn't here today, and so I know that questions directed to other  it would normally go to other Ministers than come to the Premier when the appropriate Minister is not here. Just a bit of education to the public on why I'm answering these. So I'll do my best. It's a big question because there actually is a lot happening. This was a huge focus in the last government as the Member recalls, and so a lot of work has begun. So I can't go through everything that is happening but if you look at the Indigenous Recruitment...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Many of those contracts are based on federal funding and so we have very limited abilities in those situations. When it's GNWT funding, there's a greater ability to collaborate. But I'll just take a guess that we could probably do more collaboration. I think we can always do more collaboration, and that's going to lead to more to better results and more satisfied organizations and people. So it is you know, I've been preaching about this for quite some time now, so I look forward to enhancing our collaboration with the NGOs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, there is no centralized collection of those. There is a number of departments and agencies with contracts and contributions with nonprofits, but I can say that the as part of our homelessness strategy, A Way Home, the integrated services delivery team is tasked with compiling those into a central repository. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So if the Member wants to provide the Minister of Finance with some specifics about the instances he's talking about, I'm sure the Minister of Finance will be happy to look into those. Thank you.