Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the story starts way back in 2010. There was some policy revisions made at that time. And essentially any business that was already here at that time, and that was already operating in the Northwest Territories, was grandfathered in under that policy. And that has not changed, and so those companies continue to be on Schedule 3. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, while I do hope to have a positive relationship with the union and hope to continue that, I'm certainly not in a position to speak on their behalf. I can say that there were this was an opportunity where, while not always a smooth path along the way, I do believe this was a reflection of a good collaborative effort between the GNWT and the UNW in terms of trying to identify ways to bring more healthcare staff in. With more staff there, it helps lessen the burden on each individual staff and it helps retain the staff that we have. And, again, without losing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly do consider this to be one tool in the toolbox of recruitment and retention efforts that are underway within the health authorities and supported by the Department of Finance. The intention again is to ensure that we are finding those positions that have been hard to recruit here in the Northwest Territories and, again, to then pay according to the positions that were discussed between ourselves and the union and looking at the data available about what those positions are. It doesn't mean that every single person employed within the Department...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Walmart's the easy one. Walmart and Loblaws and, in fact, many of the other businesses on Schedule 3 have not bid on any GNWT contracts in over ten years. And in that sense, they're sitting there but they're not really gaining much benefit from being on Schedule 3. Those aren't the difficult circumstances. The more complicated ones are those who are longtime northernbased businesses who have had the benefit of growing and becoming large larger businesses, which is really a good news story for the Northwest Territories and for having those businesses based...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, there's a number of different things happening with respect to the procurement review. Some already have seen some changes. There's been, for example, vendor performance management is now underway. Contracts are being updated accordingly. There's significant work happening led by EIA on Indigenous procurement, being codeveloped or codetermined with Indigenous parties that would benefit from that. There's also work happening in ITI, Mr. Speaker, around the business incentive policy and around the manufacturing policy to look at ways to improve that. And...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: 20212022 Public Accounts, Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I do have a letter that I understood had gone to Members in October. Obviously, things don't always go perfectly, and I don't know where those letters sometimes go on the other side. But it was sent in October, alerting them to the fact this was coming. More correspondence was sent in January and February to update as to the progress. I don't have a final policy yet. That's exactly where we're at. We've got a sense of the two policies and what we expect to see in them and how they might work. But as for the final drafts, I don't have them yet. Before...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, a letter was sent, firstly, to all Indigenous governments back in October. Around that time, there was also a letter sent to colleagues from all of the Assembly, letting them know that this work was underway. This was, of course, in response to a commitment made in this House, I believe by the Premier, with respect to the Affirmative Action Policy and saying that it was high time to get this work moving. And so that consultative process, as I said, began in October and is continuing now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that because of our consensus government, I'm in a position to be able to share with the MLAs the correspondence we've written. They know I share their frustration. I can't necessarily publish those letters publicly, but they know I share their frustration. I was at a finance ministers meeting just last week. It is an opportunity not necessarily to say a lot, but I spoke about the carbon tax at my finance ministers meeting, Mr. Speaker. I share their frustration. It is unfortunate that when we went through the public process of engagement back last fall that we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, keeping control of the revenues in the Northwest Territories allows us to do exactly what the Member is saying and to look at where once the carbon tax come in, are there costs that we have not accounted for? The Yukon system, I don't want to speak to another government's system, but very briefly, it is based on assets. It is not based on fuel usage. It is not a direct offset. It is not an uncomplicated system, Mr. Speaker. What we are anticipating, and having done calculations of fuel usage over the last few years, we can anticipate what the added costs...