Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that Bill 101, Supplementary Appropriations Act (Operations Expenditures and Borrowing Authorization), No. 3, 20232024, be read for the third time. And, Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if the Member wanted me to run down this clock for 35 minutes by describing all the efforts that we've gone into, I'm certainly happy to do that. I won't, Mr. Speaker, though it is tempting.

Mr. Speaker, there was an extraordinary effort by a number of Members of Cabinet, and a number of Members of Cabinets across this country, asking the federal government to make changes to their policy not the least of which would be to allow heating fuel to continue to be exempted for residential homes, which would make such a difference in northern, rural, and remote...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that Bill 101, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures and Borrowing Authorization), No. 3, 20232024, be read for the second time.

This bill sets out limits on supplementary amounts that may be borrowed by the Commissioner on behalf of the government and authorizes the making of disbursements to pay the principal of supplementary amounts borrowed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Cracking 100, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 101, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures and Borrowing Authorization), No. 3, 20232024, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to an aspect of the motion I haven't heard as much attention on, and so I wanted to take this opportunity. It comes at page 11 of the or I'm sorry, at page 11 of the Integrity Commissioner's decision. And he says, In reaching this determination, I have considered Ms. Nokleby's explanation that she did not leave Yellowknife after the YKDFN made it clear that she was not an essential worker because she was in, quote, emotional tailspin.

He continues on to say, The whole situation was no doubt stressful, as it was for everyone who evacuated...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I do I guess maybe this is where we will disagree. So there was at one time an estimate of a billion dollars. There's been inflation. There's been the passage of time. There's costs of fuel. So it is pretty easy to see that we are looking into the stage of being well past the billion-dollar mark. And as I've said, there's still one critical business decision to be made by potential steering committee meeting group as to the routing, and that will impact the costs. So I'm not in a position to say on my own which of those two choices it will be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I think I have said before, we do have a final business case. The final business case does go to our steering committee first. This is the Indigenous government partners who are members of that watershed of the Taltson region who are still choosing to participate in the steering committee process. Mr. Speaker, so that work has been done. It is a lengthy, complex, and detailed. When while we may be able to share documents like that through the confidential processes of the House, I will not be in a position to put those numbers out forward on the floor of...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Priorities for Critical Minerals in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, right now what we do have is there are staffing appeal regulations that come in under the Public Service Act. There are staffing appeals that are reviewed by staffing officers who are independent from the public service, independent from the Department of Finance. So there is a process in place. That said, I know there's often concerns raised, and it was raised during the review process, about whether or not this is sufficient or adequate to make sure that people are, in fact, benefitting from the processes we have in place. So that was part of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been a suite of things that have happened in the Department of Finance for the human resources over the last four years, and certainly the Affirmative Action Policy and the work we've done to review it is part of that. Seeing it to its end would certainly be nice towards the end of this Assembly but, Mr. Speaker, the Member's already noted, we only just were able to table the report in terms of what we heard and what we've been recommended to do and, as such, it really would not be appropriate at this point to be making a change at the dying days...