Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's early days to know what may or may not be in the review of a piece of legislation and, of course, always happy to consider amendments. I can say that we are members of the Canadian insurance services regulatory organization, meaning the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators and the General Insurance Statistical Agency. I mention all of those because as this process moves forward, I'll certainly look for the opportunity to see if there's any best practices happening. Again, cost increases are happening everywhere, and it's an issue that's coming up...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The urgency of this was due to the timing of the required generate applications, so the deadline for that was the end of October and so there was a desire to get this in as quickly as possible to reflect that timing, and so there's a supplementary estimate here now. This is the earliest time we could put it before the House but wanted to see that it's part of the process of the public utilities board which is underway right now. That was the timing issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we do have a supplementary reserve that we set at $35 million and, obviously, this one alone would certainly put us over that. We do -- sorry, Mr. Chair, I'm just trying to see where -- anyways, it is obviously going to put us over that we -- oh, there we are. Thank you.

So, Mr. Chair, the net impact here, we are going to end up at a total impact of $64,717 million in this case, obviously significantly beyond a $35 million target that we would have set. And, yes, I guess that's the answer to start, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can say that to my information there's 150 individual insurers that are licensed under the Insurance Act. As for what each or every one of them may or may not be doing with increasing rates, I don't have that information. The Insurance Act gives me the ability -- or gives the department the ability to regulate but not necessarily to control the commercial side of what these organizations do. That said, Mr. Speaker, we are, as a government, a member of a number of different groups across Canada, and rates are rising across the country so can certainly say...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't know if I have that level of detail. Let me see if the deputy minister maybe can, and if not, we will look to pull up -- sorry, it's where the $12 million came from or where it's being applied? It's going to be applied on to -- to the costs -- the ratepayers' costs but it's where it's coming from, I'll see if the deputy minister may have that handy.

Please, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it really is quite literally the role of the public utilities board to conduct the general application, and it is a fairly extensive and detailed process that is undertaken when they have to put in literally every single cost that is incurred, and it is analyzed, and there is a determination as to whether those costs are reasonable or not, and then the PUB sets, again, a reasonable -- a range of reasonableness of what the utility's permitted to make back in terms of their rate of return. That rate of return from the GNWT's side, Mr. Chair, we haven't taken a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, again, it's -- perhaps let me see if the deputy minister wants to take a go at sort of explaining this end of it. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to send that to the deputy minister who will be able to speak to that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, typically if the vehicle comes in under $50,000, then we wouldn't necessarily have to see it coming in here. That's the threshold for having to come in on a capital -- as a capital project or a capital item. So with the cost of vehicles rising, and particularly if they're specialized vehicles like the ambulance in Behchoko that was in one of the earlier items here today, then that does need to come in through an infrastructure budget item. I hope that answers the question. Thank you.