Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, on my left is Pamela Strand, deputy minister. And on my right is Nina Salvador, the director of finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so there were some challenges I understand in terms of the staffing at the Status of Women over the last several months, and the gender equity unit was able to provide some supports during that period of time. It is the board of the Status of Women that does do their own hiring and does manage their own human resources process. So the role that I would have on behalf of the GNWT, as the Minister responsible for Status of Women, is to appoint the board and then they do their own hiring. So I certainly can reach out to them for an update as to where they're...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so I mean, as I've said, I think, through the last round of questions, I certainly in general would be happy to see more uses of the parks and more tourism opportunities. The challenge is ensuring that the contractors who run the parks are available, firstly, and it may not that they are prepared to undertake whatever the asks are. And there then has to be sufficient occupancy and incoming revenue to make some business case for it. And it probably will not fully offset the costs to the department to keep the parks open. But if it could at least come close...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am also aware of the appointments to the CRTC insofar as they are known on the internet. The federal government does not have an obligation to come to me with respect to their decisions over who they appoint. They are appointments done by the Canadian heritage minister, federal Canadian heritage minister so, again, they're fiveyear appointments. It may well be that it's an opportunity to put forward some names if people in the Northwest Territories are interested in this area. I would certainly be interested in hearing from them or hearing about them...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Intergovernmental Council has been a codevelopment partner of the Mineral Resources Act regulations. They have sat at the table handinhand with ITI in terms of getting to where we are at this point. And notwithstanding, I know perhaps not the view of every Member in this House, the industry partners out there are often quite critical of the fact that they feel that they haven't had the opportunity to have as much input as they want. So it seems like you can't always make everybody happy. But in this case, we have taken the legislative protocol that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, if there is an operator in the North Slave area that is interested in running winter camping, we would love to hear from them. There is going to be a whole list of funding opportunities that I'll be sharing with MLAs after today to give opportunity for potential operators to access funds to open their winter camping opportunity. The costs to the department, when we ran just two extra weeks back in 2020, was well over $200,000 and largely because of the costs of the contractors. Now that is across all of the regions that were participating in that pilot back...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so, firstly, just quickly with respect to agrifood, I am conscious of the Member's time but I'm actually at their association AGM next Friday and so certainly can follow up immediately and make note of the fact that this has been brought to our attention with respect to reporting to see exactly what the issue is.

And with respect then to the position for the fisheries, it is, indeed, a sunset but that is in part I think there was an expectation that the position was going to seconded to the Tu Cho for two years and in fact now the position is just changing in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I expect that is going to find itself under the contract services line item. I don't have the specific here. But it would be in the contribution it would either be reported under the procurement reporting that takes place around our own grants and contributions report. So I can figure out which one of the two it is and provide that to the Member.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So the Department of ITI maintains the BIP registry, which fortunately I'm able to speak to a little bit. And as I've mentioned I think earlier this session, we are conducting certainly the procurement review in looking at the registry for the BIP, wanting to ensure that it's reflective of what an appropriate definition for northern businesses is. The final version of what that definition might in fact be is not now final and so in that regard, the Schedule 3 to the BIP remains as it is from something that long predates, I think arguably most, if not all of us in this...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, there were two areas of sunset in here, and that's what led to the drop. The first is with respect to the advancing the knowledge economy, there was a position there that is as that work has advanced already now and there is this strategy in place that that position is gone. And then also there's some changes with respect to, again, the makerspace, money that was there has moved out as well. So, you know, in short and then to say that, yes, there's the work that's going on currently on the regional economic development plans but that wouldn't necessarily...