Premier plans ‘immediate attention’ for people thinking of leaving

The new NWT premier says his government must act fast to address the concerns of people who are thinking of heading for the territorial exit door.

Using his hometown of Hay River as an example, RJ Simpson told Cabin Radio: “We’ve had a lot of disasters and I know people are leaving. I know people who’ve left, I see homes for sale.”

Simpson, elected premier four days ago, said his incoming government must offer “immediate attention to areas like that to address people’s immediate concerns.”

What that will look like isn’t clear. Simpson’s cabinet members don’t even have their portfolios yet, although the premier said those assignments were imminent.

In a 10-minute interview – one of many he gave to news outlets on Friday afternoon, a day after his election – Simpson answered a range of questions submitted by residents to Cabin Radio earlier in the day.

Hundreds of questions were sent in.

Many dealt with how government priorities might change, but those questions are hard for Simpson to meaningfully answer yet. Consensus government demands that all MLAs set priorities together, and that exercise isn’t supposed to end until February. We’ll come back to those questions then.

Here are a dozen or so questions we selected for the first interview – and the premier’s answers.

More: Listen to this interview

This interview was recorded on December 8, 2023. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ollie Williams: What things or approaches change on day one, compared to the last four years, with you as premier?

RJ Simpson: One of the things that doesn’t necessarily change, but what we can really build upon, is how we work with Indigenous governments. We’ve made a lot of progress in this last government by creating the NWT Council of Leaders, which is a table that Indigenous governments from across the territory and the GNWT sit at to discuss issues and work on policies.

We passed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Implementation Act, and we’re going to co-develop actions with Indigenous governments to address that. So I want to really continue that and build upon that and then make that a cornerstone of this government.

Out of all the other provincial and territorial leaders, and the federal government, who’s the first call been from or to since you became premier?

Moments after the election, when I was still the premier-elect, I spoke with the premier from Nunavut, and last night I spoke with the premier from Yukon. It’s important that we keep a strong relationship with our northern partners. Team North.

You have two Hay River MLAs and Fort Smith’s MLA in cabinet. What message do you want to send to residents of the South Slave after the year that they’ve had, with that sort of cabinet lineup?

I guess I want the residents of the South Slave to realize and to understand that: We get it. You know, we’re part of it. We lived it. I was an evacuee. Minister McKay was a front-line responder. We get what has happened. We see the issues that people are still facing and we know the need to address them going forward. I don’t want another season like this. If we have more emergencies, I want people to say the GNWT was prepared this time.

When do you expect to hand out portfolios to your cabinet?

Hopefully in the next few days, early next week at the latest.

Given her experience, will you ask Caroline Wawzonek to keep Finance and ITI?

It’s too early to get into that right now. She’s definitely a strong minister and I’m happy to have a minister returning from that last cabinet.

Yours will be the government that enters the era of big diamond mine closures. What’s your immediate priority to prepare for that?

One of the biggest things we can do to address that is work on settling land claims and implementing self-government agreements. I don’t know if people realize the benefits to the regions, especially outside of Yellowknife, but money starts flowing into communities, capacity is built, and so I think that’s one of the biggest things that we can do. Larger communities will take a hit from that but the smaller communities are really going to be impacted as well. That is key and land certainty also promotes investment.

Speaking of priorities, you’ve said the GNWT is stretched too thin but your fellow MLAs had a huge range of concerns. How are you going to act to keep the to-do list achievable? How will you approach that with your colleagues, without leaving MLAs and residents feeling like you’re cutting back? Or is it time to cut back?

I think what it’s time to do is to get back to the basics and ensure the government is providing the quality services that residents need provided. So we need to ensure that we’re providing healthcare services, that we are providing emergency preparedness services, emergency management, and I don’t think we need to look at cutting back – we need to look at refocusing our efforts.

I know from my time as a minister, there’s a lot of vacancies across the government and it’s hard to get things done when you have units that are at half capacity. So if we want to get things done, we need to focus our efforts, bring some of those positions together and work on common goals.

What, then, might be an example of something that is not a quality service for NWT residents that we are doing right now? When we talk about back to basics, what is not basic? What is out there that the GNWT is doing that it might not do in future?

Well, you know, we need to figure that out. And we started, in the last government, the government renewal initiative to actually look at what government is doing, because they really haven’t had a holistic view of that. And so by looking at that inventory, now we can say: are all of these programs delivering results? If a program is not delivering results, then let’s take those resources and put them somewhere else. And so that’s the work we need to do, right away.

Government renewal has been going on for a while now and you need to know pretty quick here, don’t you, to be able to have some impact with that. When do you expect to be able to say with certainty: “This is how we’re going to change course?”

That’s going to be up to the cabinet. We were just sworn in about an hour and a half ago, so we’re going to get started right away. We need to hit the ground running. All of the ministers know that. Their lives of leisure are over and we’ve got to get down to work.

We had varieties on a theme of this question: What is your message to residents who are just hanging on, or are thinking of leaving, while you take the time that you obviously need to get your vision off the ground? Why should they give you time?

You know, this is a question that hits close to home. In Hay River we’ve had a lot of disasters and I know people are leaving. I know people who’ve left, I see homes for sale. And so we need to let people know that we’re there for them and that we are going to provide that safe and secure environment, because that’s a big part of the issue as well. Why do you want to live somewhere if you’re evacuated two months of the year?

We need immediate attention to areas like that to address people’s immediate concerns.

You’ve said the GNWT can no longer act like the boss. You’re big on collaboration, that was the first thing you talked about in this interview. Would you have dropped the GNWT’s intervention in the Supreme Court over Bill C-92, which the territory previously said undermines its legislative autonomy?

That intervention is a legal question about the words in two federal acts – the NWT Act and Bill C-92. It is about ensuring that we have a legal regime that is workable in the territory, and it’s not about how we work with other governments. We want to continue working with other governments. We want to advance our relationships. But sometimes there are tough decisions that have to be made.

It came across, though, certainly to the IRC as though it was the territory acting in a way that protected its interests at the expense of collaboration, didn’t it?

I can’t speak for how it came across to the IRC, but I fully support the IRC’s desires. I see the future of the territory as one where Indigenous governments are delivering services to their residents that are culturally relevant, and I don’t want to stand in the way of that – but I want to make sure that we have a legal regime in the territory that is workable for all residents, including the majority of residents who are Indigenous.

Kieron Testart proposed a slew of structural changes in his bid to be the premier: associate ministers, new portfolios, a new department, ending Maca. Are you attracted to any of the changes that he was talking about?

I served with Kieron in the 18th Assembly and in what he proposed, I see that he was trying to address a number of issues that we faced in the 18th Assembly and then largely dealt with in the 19th Assembly. The relationship between cabinet and the regular members greatly improved, in part because myself and Mr Thompson wanted to make that improvement. We were returning and we told cabinet, “This is how we would like to be dealt with as regular members.”

Cabinet was open to that and a lot of those changes were made. So I’m not sure that a lot of those issues are relevant any more, but I will say that Kieron? He loves politics. He loves that procedure. I look forward to working with him because he does have some good ideas.

But it sounds like you’re not keen on picking up any of the ones he was talking about there.

I’m keen on getting down to work and when we have structural changes, that takes a lot of effort that could be going towards things like delivering programs and improving programs for residents.

Last question that came in to us, which I really liked: At the end of your four years, what will tell you if you met your objectives?

At the end of four years, I would like to see the relationship between the GNWT and Indigenous governments improved. I want the Indigenous governments to see it as improved, more than anything, because that is the real test.

I want residents to feel supported by the government. I want residents, when they interact with the government, to be pleased with that. One of the things we need to do is work towards a person-centred approach to governance, whether it’s developing legislation or it’s delivering services, and eventually to an integrated service delivery model as well.