Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, at this point, there's certainly the, you know, expectation based on what was being done and what was being tracked over the last few months, the last few months of where COVID was at. You know, this is expected to get us through that transition. I'm hesitating because of course I don't think anyone really knows what may or may not happen, say, this fall. You know, there's certainly a hope that with the vaccination rates that we have, with the availability of vaccinations for youth, for boosters, etcetera, that we won't be back in any kind of significant...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So yes, you'll recall the Fiscal Responsibility Policy requires that 50 percent of our capital budget is funded through supplementary or from operations surpluses. So yes, if there's less surplus available, then there'd be less money to spend in compliance with that policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect to any sort of sale program or process that may be underway, it would not be unusual for that to involve confidential discussions. And if that's the case, it's very difficult, if not impossible, considering legal obligations, to be displaying that out publicly.

That said, Mr. Speaker, we are a consensus government and there's been a lot of work done in this Assembly in terms of understanding better how to communicate between Ministers and MLAs when it comes to the development of legislation and the development of regulations, and perhaps there's...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so again, this is a program that was cost shared with the federal government, and it was part of funding that was being delivered through COVID19 and the pandemic when airline services across the country were facing fairly dire straits, when there was the sort of significant and immediate shut downs of airline services and impacts to them.

The portion that we received was to help maintain air service costs across the Northwest Territories. The federal government wasn't, you know, supporting which you know, based on where ownership might be. They were...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, this year we had set aside not set aside but had created a supplementary reserve of $35 million. We are down to 10.754 after this.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we don't have substantiation of amounts in time for the spring session. I don't know that it was ever anticipated that we would have had the kind of substantiation necessary to make it into the spring session. You might recall that last year with the floods, a special warrant was done and had it brought in for fall. So, you know, I certainly don't want residents to think that simply because of the timing of session that funding won't be available. The Disaster Assistance Policy was updated such that the cap is now at $240,000, and that doesn't change based...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's Action 1.1 of the framework where it speaks to the importance of the job descriptions and, specifically, that all departments and agencies are now expected to conduct a detailed review of all job descriptions specifically with keeping in mind systemic barriers that may exist. And the point is to precisely do that, to remove those systemic barriers.

Every department and agency is responsible for their job descriptions. They certainly can seek strategic advice from human resources. But that is the individual requirements for each department, knowing...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so there was no extra money remaining in this particular line item. There is a surplus amount in the Regional Air Transportation Initiative, or RATI agreement, which is managed under Infrastructure and which I think we'll come to shortly.

These funds are specifically were negotiated with the Department of Transportation Canada really out of COVID relief. And, yes, as I say, there was nothing that wasn't spent in what we had available.

Madam Chair, I think there was another question in there, and I apologize, I forgot what it was.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it does require a regulatory change and so that is being worked on at present. And we are expecting that those regulations should be implemented by August the 1st. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, at this point, having made it into the supplementary appropriation, this is really just a very initial amount. And at this point, my understanding is that the assessors of course still have to do their work in order to ascertain exactly what the damages will be and then the full damage compensation process can begin under the Disaster Assistance Policy.

You know, and again for whatever it's worth in this place, Madam Chair, I know the Minister has asked all of us to emphasize the importance of folks registering, both businesses and residential individuals...