R.J. Simpson

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, Mr. Speaker. I don't know if I would even venture to take a guess because no one knows when it comes to the land claims. When you have multiple parties involved -- so it's not just us. There's also Canada. And Canada still has some issues that they need to figure out. They need to provide clarity in certain areas, and I think the other partners have been waiting for years for clarity on some of these areas. And so it's tough to get to the end goal when we don't even quite know what path all of us can take together. So there's still some work to be done there.

That being said, even in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I have. I am familiar -- I know Chair Elias from my previous role as education, culture and employment Minister when we were working on the school in his community, and so I made a number of trips up there and have had many conversations with him over the phone and in his house, so we're very familiar with each other. So when he was elected, I reached out to him that night, congratulated him, and I've been giving him a bit of space because I know how much information there is to absorb right at the beginning of that term. But we did reach out, requested a meeting...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that my hope -- and, again, there's a lot of work to be done here. I've seen the very first analysis so far. We're part of it. And just from what I've seen, there is money to be saved while still continuing to deliver the service. And so I don't think that we have a plethora of different programs that we can just cut and get rid of. In the North, we have to over-capitalize. We have to provide services even when there's a small number of people who need those services because that's what governments do. And so we're going to continue to do those. But within those...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So when -- in terms of the actual tables, we do provide confidential updates to the Members, quarterly updates with -- they're pretty -- actually pretty descriptive of what's going on. And if you look -- read those every quarter, you will find that you get a good sense of what's happening in there. We've also made the -- sort of a condensed version of the mandate public, and that's -- that was in the last government as well, and that should be posted online, because there was always comments that, you know, we have no mandate. And so there are -- it's pretty solid...

Thank you. So the business plan, it's light on the healthcare system sustainability unit because the unit is to look at the services and provide an analysis to Cabinet. There's not much beyond that. I mean, that's a lot of work, but it's a very narrow and targeted focus. And so the goal of the unit is to do that work and provide advice to Cabinet. So, I mean, if you look at bed-based addictions treatment, if the argument is that we are delivering that as perfectly and efficiently as possible, then there would be no purpose for us to go and look at that. I am not of the opinion that we're doing...

Thank you. I will have to go and confer with my colleague, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. But what we want to see is the concerns that we've heard over the years addressed. I want to see land become available. We want there to be a clear process with clear timelines, either a yes or a no. We want to ensure that there's opportunities for development. So what we're looking for in terms of results is land that can be developed. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, of course, these business plans and these targets were all created in our first year, and as we go, we learn. And so what I am finding has been more useful is to meet personally with the Indigenous governments, with the negotiators, hear directly from them, and see why it's taken us, you know, decades to make progress on things or not make progress on things. There have been instances where there has been some back-and-forth between basically ourselves and the Indigenous governments on some of the finer details of potential future agreements, and so we've dealt with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right is Terence Courtoreille, associate deputy minister, healthcare system sustainability.