Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. So right now, Madam Chair, the rates that are built in were built at a time that reflect a much lower amount of price on diesel. So there's obviously a couple of drivers that are making that now no longer accurate. And what happens is there is a rate stabilization fund approach, which is a standard utility approach to help when there are costs overages of this nature. Of what that would do, it would create a rider and if there is a rider imposed, that would then of course raise the rates. Rather than have individual residents face increased rates at this time given...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, fishers do right now have the ability to apply through SEED force subsidies to support them with the cost of equipment. They are also being supported in terms of provided training, both in the winter and the summer fishery, and in the works right now is an effort to provide additional funding. Funding was already provided once last fiscal year and again this year to help support having mentors and trainees on the boats which would then support their labour needs. There is also has traditionally been and continues to be support subsidy support for...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, May 31st, 2023, I will present Bill 92, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Products and Carbon Tax Act, No. 3, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the revitalization of the Great Slave Lake commercial fishery has been a goal of the Government of the Northwest Territories since it was first proposed in the 2014 NWT Economic Opportunities Strategy. This goal continues to be supported by our own government's mandate to increase food security through locally produced, harvested, and affordable food.

Central to our efforts has been the construction of a new fish processing facility in Hay River capable of processing and packaging Great Slave Lake fish for market. I am happy to advise Members today that this new plant is now in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the report at issue here was discontinued after 2008. It was extremely labour intensive and didn't necessarily capture all of the procurement that was taking place. It involved a lot of manual recoding of things which really  you know, having to manually recode (a) takes a lot of effort and isn't always the most accurate. What we have replaced it with most recently, within this last year, Mr. Speaker, is the contract reporting dashboard which does breakdown current years by type of contract, by region, by jurisdiction, by the nature of the contract. But I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we've mentioned Bear Facts here before. It is the primary tool for communication for all staff within the public service. And on May the 15th, we did put out a fairly detailed note here stating that employees required to evacuate, both Hay River, K'atlodeeche, may use emergency leave pursuant to the conditions in the collective agreement. So I certainly would hope that there's been no misunderstanding or lack of awareness of it, but I'm happy to have the chance to raise it again here in the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that probably falls more within the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs. I can certainly, from at least the perspective of Finance only, say that right now the organization of the different regions, with superintendents and associated administrative responsibilities, certainly would involve a reorganization of various, you know, each department's organizational charts, each department's reporting hierarchies. So there are some administrative barriers to doing it. That doesn't mean that this can't be done. It's certainly been done before, but it's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, that is correct, that it would be paid leave for those who are subject to the evacuation order. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to hope that the decisionmaking is not impeded by the lack of having a specific region. There are superintendents in the region for certainly  I know ITI as well as other departments have superintendents there. And we also, of course, have, this is an entity that is a selfgoverning region and there is a Tlicho child and family services, Tlicho services agencies, so there are a number of organizational structures that are distinct and unique to the Tlicho region. If there's some specific areas where that is not working well, I would love to talk...

Yes, Mr. Speaker; absolutely, Mr. Speaker, access to quality, available, affordable, reliable, competitive, internet telecommunications, absolutely that increases economic reconciliation. Mr. Speaker, there's I could stop there but this is an opportunity I know there's times where our federal government counterparts are listening. I know they follow what we say. I hope the CRTC follows what we say here because that is an absolute truth. We're trying to do our part. We need to have private sector involved. We need the federal government to be involved. These are major investments, major...