Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am a huge fan of the makerspaces as well. I know that the makerspace here in Yellowknife has done a lot with an initial investment from ITI. In fact, I think I'm meeting with them for an update tomorrow because they are continuing to see an expansion of their programs. I can say, very frankly, the thing that I've heard from them as to what their success has been, as well as in Inuvik what the challenges they're seeing, is having a local champion, someone who also believes in the program as much as the Member and I do. We can provide those dollars...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair yeah, I mean at this point we'd like to get through 20232024's budget before I have a hope about what might happen in 20242025.

But with respect to film, we certainly did see this was an area where we are seeing a significant amount of growth, both in terms of local production but also in terms of the amount of films that are coming and scouting locations. This was actually an area that saw a lot challenge in COVID because people couldn't travel into the territories even though they were asking. They were looking to come and get ready to film so that they'd be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, let me get back to the Member on that. The challenge I would see on that is there's going to be MARS funding. There's going to be the mineral resource the sort of specific line item here, and I want to make sure that we don't lose anything over the course of a few fiscal years. It's embedded work that this is what this is sort of where this is the meat of what a lot of public servants over at ITI do right now, but we'll try our best to pull the specifics of it. I'm confident I won't have that number and, yes, the mining recorder’s office as well. So it's...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, I mean this is a time where I would say that the pandemic recovery, although many indicators show a recovery, there certainly are it certainly hasn't been even. It hasn't been even for all individual businesses or all individual retailers for example. I can certainly follow up, you know, perhaps with some of the chambers as well, just to see if there's specific types of businesses or retailers that are struggling more than others. One of the things I can say that's happening, perhaps more over on the BDIC side, is that there's efforts to work with...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I presume there's sort of there may be a look here at what's happening with some of the actuals. I would just note 20212022 was still a COVID year where we would have had a lot of COVID relief funding coming through the department. So while I don't want to presume exactly which line item might be at issue, that is a fairly reasonable chance that that's going to be the situation. One other sorry, Mr. Chair, there may be one other explanation available, which is to say that there were some changes in the TSC charge back approach and so there was some under spend in that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I agree. I want all the things. So, you know, the forestry specifically, that would actually fall under ENR. And, again, I'm going to add that to my list, the ENLR department, so lands, natural resources Lands, ENR well, now ECC and us do meet, and I'll add that to our next meeting item, just to make sure that we're checking in and working together from an economic development perspective and from the forestry perspective. You know, we want to continue to see mineral resource development. We want to see Indigenous governments participating at an equity stage...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to seeing benefits, I mean, Mr. Chair, this is an area that was seeing fairly significant growth prior to two years of rather significant floods obviously and the agriculture sector was very dramatically impacted by the floods. I know the Member will be very well aware of that. That said, we are seeing that the sector's bouncing back, that folks are returning, and it's hoped that with given that there's been this change on the federal system and the increase of money coming through the federal CAP program, that this may be an opportunity for folks to really...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me direct that to the deputy, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on my left I have the deputy minister Pamela Strand. And on my right, Nina Salvador, who is the director of finance for the department.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So certainly some effort can be made perhaps to try to determine what monies are going in, and it would depend upon if we're looking at positions or if we're looking at contributions. There are EDO contribution agreements, for example with the YKDFN and Fort Res, where we are funding an economic development officer in those two communities. There would obviously be quite a large number of, you know, individual grants and contributions that go to individual businesses in all four of those communities and that would be in the contract report so we can provide that detail...