Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In favour.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, we we've worked hard over the last four years, notwithstanding multiple forms of crisis and emergency, to go from starting off with a deficit situation to being at a point where we were announcing $178 million surplus, what feels like a very long time ago now, back in February. That surplus is all but wiped out right now. There might be some smidgy bit left of that. That's my technical term, Madam Chair. At this point, we're, you know, at $178 million while we're taking $75 million out, better part of, right now. There was the $35 million, you know...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Nahendeh, that Bill 99 Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures) No. 2, 20232024, be read for the second time. This bill makes supplementary appropriations for operations expenditures for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 20232024 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I missed literally the first few words of the Member from Kam Lake's question. If she could just repeat the beginning, I wasn't sure what if I could, please, just so I can answer more specifically. Thank you.

In favour.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, Madam Chair, I don't have a detailed breakdown in a way that I think what I'm hearing is being asked for here. There are the costs, of course, for air tanker support, then there's the cost for the helicopter support, and then there's the cost for moving crews around. There are the fires that folks are watching that are impacting Fort Smith, Hay River, Kakisa, Jean Marie River, obviously Yellowknife, but there was also fires that were impacting all the way up the entire valley. This there's been an estimated 70 percent of the residents of the Northwest Territories...

In favour.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, typically leave for that does, of course, fall to the Premier's Office, and I think it was made public, and it certainly was shared with Members that the Premier's Office did meet with the Prime Minister so, you know, in that sense has taken the message about as high up as it can go. And, you know, obviously as we move forward, if there are some individual areas of interest, you know, different Ministers are meeting with their counterparts. For example, the Minister responsible for emergency Preparedness would be meeting with his counterpart in the federal...

Madam Chair, I do have some estimated costs at this point. I know I had an opportunity to meet with several of the Members last week and was provided some of those costs to them. I don't have that necessarily at my fingertips now in that I was planning to focus the discussion today on the fire response and not on the various evacuation costs. Again, that I do expect, as I said earlier, that we will certainly be facing a supplementary appropriation, probably in the Department of Finance, which is where some of the added amounts are, but quite possibly for the Municipal and Community Affairs...