Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a big part of our health and social services has been falling short with Indigenous governments and in our small communities because Indigenous governments are not closely involved with healthcare administration. The leaders from my communities are calling for a creation of intergovernmental working group to ensure Indigenous governments have a seat at the table. Would the Minister agree to a proposal like this in her deliberation? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question. We do involve Indigenous representatives throughout different parts of our health system to guide us in the work that we do. As I mentioned in my statement, under the cultural safety and awareness anti-racism unit, the work that they're doing is guided by representatives from all Indigenous governments that are pointed to the Indigenous advisory body where they meet and they go over policy and get their feedback to ensure that these policies and things are reviewed under a cultural safety lens, anti-racism lens, for Indigenous people.
We also have the regional wellness councils. In the last round of appointments, I made sure as the Minister who picks the appointments, that I reached out to -- even into MLAs and Indigenous governments if they did not have a representative on those boards to say -- put names forward because I wanted those boards to be representative in all of the regions to be representative of the differences in their communities, so ensuring that there was different people from the communities. So -- yeah, and for the Member's riding, I know we have two seats in the Yellowknife region riding that come from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. But I encourage more people to put their name forward for those. Those are the ones that -- they work directly with the chairs and the chairs work directly with -- like, with myself and the PA. We recently created a chair Minister meeting that will be having the first one with the regional wellness council chairs, myself, PA, and the CEO, on June 12th. That will bring forward the regions' issues to a table where we can have those conversations. And there is one more that we recently did at the Council of Leaders. So all Indigenous governments and then government, we sit at the Council of Leaders as equals.
Health issues continue to come up. We need to find ways to resolve these issues. So everybody around the table has appointed executive members to sit at that table to take direction from each of their group, to speak on behalf of the issues in their community. I can -- you know, and I can share this information with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in British Columbia, there's an agreement with the provincial government to establish a First Nations health authority. At the same time, some First Nations operates their own private health centres there as well. Can the Minister indicate if any -- sorry, indicate if health and social services were to consider the creation of First Nation health authorities here in the NWT while allowing community-based initiatives to be jump started to fill in the gap in the meantime? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The little bits and pieces, what I do know of the First Nations BC health authority are from my old practices with NIHB. And I know from the -- within BC, all of the Indigenous groups have gotten together, the reserves got together, and so they do run clinics on their reserves. They draw down those funds. And I know that we've had these conversations that they're getting larger amounts of money per capita because they've drawn down some of these services on their reserves. And they also encompass administering NIHB in their province solely.
But within the Northwest Territories, because we have so many different Indigenous groups, like we have the First Nations, but then we have self-governing nations, then we have Inuit, then we have Metis, it gets very complex in the Northwest Territories and I'm not saying it can't be done. Maybe in the -- you know, in those conversations, and those are the conversations that would be something that I would, you know, suggest that, you know, we could continue to have those conversations with Indigenous governments and Indigenous leaders throughout the Northwest Territories. But how we get there, you know, that would take a lot of work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was passed by the last Assembly two years ago. Can the Minister provide any progress on the part of health and social services to uphold the rights outlined in UNDRIP which the GNWT must start implementing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that the legislation was passed. I was part of that amazing work that was done. And, you know, and I think that work that continues to happen, I don't have the specifics on that, but what I do know is that within our department, we do continue to work with the Indigenous advisory body and with the culture safety and anti-racism unit to ensure that when we get those federal dollars, they're well -- like, each community has wellness funds that we give to each community based on their wellness plans, and those things are driven from their own communities to provide some services and programs in their community. But I can -- again, I will share that information with the Member of what's going on and in Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
