Caroline Wawzonek

Member Yellowknife South

Deputy Premier
Minister of Finance
Minister Responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation
Minister Responsible for Strategic Infrastructure, Energy and Supply Chains

Caroline Wawzonek was first elected to the 19th Legislative Assembly in 2019 as the Member for Yellowknife South. Ms. Wawzonek served as Minister of Justice,  Minister of Finance, Minister responsible for the Status of Women and the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. In 2023, Ms. Wawzonek was acclaimed to the 20th Legislative Assembly and returned to Executive Council as Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance, Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister Responsible for the NWT Power Corporation.
 
Ms. Wawzonek holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Calgary (2000) and a law degree from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law (2005). Her academic journey included language studies in China and Taiwan, as well as legal internships in the Philippines and England. Born in Calgary, AB, she has called Yellowknife home since 2007.
 
After establishing her criminal law practice post-admission to the Law Society of the NWT, Ms. Wawzonek appeared in all levels of NWT courts and engaged in circuit court travel. She later joined Dragon Toner, expanding her practice to general litigation and administrative law until becoming a member of the 19th Assembly.
 
Since 2007, she has taken on leadership roles in the legal community, including the presidency of the Law Society of the Northwest Territories (LSNT), section chair for the Canadian Bar Association Northwest Territories Branch (CBA-NT), and committee membership in various working groups. Her community involvement extends to appointments in multiple Yellowknife organizations, and she received a national award in 2017 for her contributions to Canadian Women in Law.
 
Ms. Wawzonek, a mother of two, enjoys running, paddleboarding, and time outdoors.
 

Committees

Caroline Wawzonek
Yellowknife South
Member's Office

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Box
1320
Email
Extension
12177
Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance, Minister of Infrastructure, and Minister Responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation
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Statements in Debates

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are, right now, working with the Department of Health and Social Services as well as ENR, and I think others, actually, towards a food strategy for the Northwest Territories, and a lot of work has, in fact, been done on that recently. There's been an inventory done around food security programming led by ITI, and recently, a poverty round table hosted by Health and Social Services. All of that information is being put together through an ADM working group so that all the departments, again, continue to understand what each one is doing so that we can best respond...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank, Madam Chair. That is not inaccurate, that it is certainly a conduit to more money, and we do have metrics. I don't know if we have them with us. I know it's reported on annually, Madam Chair, and if that is agreeable, I would certainly just commit to making sure that that's available to the Member.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is an increase there. That's with respect to the Mineral Resources Act implementation and also money to establish the knowledge economy and regional economic development plans.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are no plans right now to have any sort of extra assessment around the need for this unit right at the moment. However, what we are fairly confident in is that, while there may not have been a lot of oil and gas exploration, there continues to be a very large amount of interest in LNG production, distribution, marketing, et cetera, across the Northwest Territories. There is a lot of activity in the Delta, but there is activity in the South Slave, as well, interested in it both at a small scale and a large scale.

There is certainly that aspect of it, in addition to...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I assume it's the film industry rebate program and the Great Northern Arts Festival is what we're looking at now. Yes. Thank you. Madam Chair, we're definitely looking at the film industry rebate as well as the Great Northern Arts Festival. With respect to the film industry, I'm quite pleased to say that with the film strategy coming out imminently again and knowing that we have right now a fairly strong emergent film industry, of course, yes, I'm more than happy to say that we'd like to consider more money, but money does not grow on actual trees. We want to look at...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I think the most up-to-date would be hopefully with Deputy Minister Strand.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Madam Chair, I know there is quite a lot of ongoing work with the city. Let me see if I can get the latest on where that is at from Deputy Minister Strand, please.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Yes, please, Madam Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 66)

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a busy unit. It has a lot going on and across different areas of the department. This is where the socio-economic agreements reside. This will be where the remediation work, the remediation economy resides. This is where the Northwest Territories geological survey resides with all of its scientists. There's actually only a small percentage that is minerals specific. It is quite wide-ranging and quite broad. We have our client services community relations section that's here which supports, in fact, small businesses and small prospectors to take action and to be...