Katrina Nokleby

And lastly I guess just a quick question around contract services, which was the opposite of everything else I've been talking about was quite higher during the last year of the pandemic. Dropped again post, and then came back up. What sort of contract services are those? Are they around supports for the actual process there or is it stuff that, you know, is helping with victim services, things like that? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So is that safe then to say are we up to capacity then, and that amount is the amount we actually need for compensation and benefits, or is there still vacancies and some of that money ends up freed up later? I'm just kind of trying to get a gauge if that's, like, the actual number for the compensation and benefits. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess just sort of more out of, like, a bit of curiosity, is there any way, and I'm assuming this has probably been looked at in the FPTs and such, but that people could create a legal challenge around the fact that they weren't able to come in person to a sitting? Is there anywhere it impacts people's rights that they're only able to come virtually? I am just curious to know if it opens up the government to any sort of liability or challenge? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm just curious to know a little bit around how lessons learned during the pandemic with having some of the stuff moved towards more virtual or having defendants appear remotely by camera, etcetera. Has there been an improvement to our system? I think a lot of us can see in other areas that COVID firmly, you know, forced us to upgrade and become, you know, evolved quicker in our work. So I'm just wondering how any of this has translated into court services for the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess it's good that there's been no final number before now so that we don't have to listen to how the cost of the supply chain has driven that number up and that's the reason why nothing has advanced on the project. So I'd say that's a good thing here.

Can the Minister speak to how much of that $20 million will be retained using northern businesses and how much of it is sole sourced to former bureaucrats? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The problem with the theme day is sometimes your questions get asked and answered ahead of you getting your opportunity, so bear with me. But I'm really excited to hear that one of the routes that the Minister says they're looking at is the west side of the lake. I just want to emphasize that given my statement today, about allowing for future development, I would prefer that versus going across the lake; therefore, we could have expansion off the power lines on the west side of Great Slave.

That being said, can the Minister please tell me where the total costs for the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I have a clarification on where this million dollar from the federal government is? I only see $595,000 here. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think I said that the department was responsible for it. I asked what was happening with the fact that there hasn't been an executive director there. Given the importance of the work and that we are funding them from the GNWT to some degree, what does the department plan to do with the fact that there is nobody leading that organization? Thank you.

Thank you. And I appreciate having the 40 seconds left so I can ask one more question. So then I guess my last question is around the community tourism infrastructure. I look at that, and we have seen a few changes, and I know that we had an influx during the pandemic, when I was sitting in that seat, just to keep some money going into communities while building things like kitchen shelters, that sort of thing. I'm glad we're up a hundred thousand from last year but a hundred thousand dollars does not go very far when it comes to trying to build anything in the communities. Can the Minister...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And that plays really nicely into my next area of conversation around different forms of tourism. I recently had the opportunity to attend the Grow NWT conference, which was the agricultural conference that was hosted by the territorial agri association last week. It was fantastic. And through that there was a lot more conversation around ecotourism, agritourism. You know, I think there's a real opportunity for that southerners would find it quite interesting to see how does the North feed itself and when we do get to a stage where we have innovative greenhouses and...