Caroline Wawzonek

I can't disagree that the indexing or the lack of indexing is certainly a challenge. It doesn't allow us to be matching up to inflation, necessarily, but we certainly do get a benefit in terms of our northern residence deduction, so I want to be a bit cautious before biting the hand that feeds us all. That said, the last year, I've had a lot of engagement with the federal Finance Ministers, both of them, and it's been positive. The focus has been on COVID-19 relief and supports. It is certainly my expectation that, as we have all gotten back a bit more to some of the more regularly scheduled...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not the federal Finance Minister and I don't control the federal taxation. There is a new Finance Minister over in the federal government, as well, so it may well be that there is more change yet to come. As for any formal changes, I can say that we've been advised that the Canada Revenue Agency expects that some of the challenges that may have led to more audits have been resolved and, indeed, that that hopefully should not continue to be a problem for residents of the Northwest Territories. Aside from that, I don't have a, "what we heard" report from the federal...

I sense the theme of where this is going, and really, all of the policies in the world are really only as good as the people who are applying them. I am conscious of that. We certainly talk a lot within the Department of Finance around making sure that training is available and accessible; that the drive to give employees time to take their training is there; and that there's a conscious awareness from the top down that, really, we want employees to take the training. We want managers to be abreast of their training. We want them all to have those opportunities to take the right training so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Affirmative Action Policy applies to the summer student and internship programs, just as it does to all GNWT hires. Hiring managers are expected to be fully aware of all of those policies, certainly, and as I had referenced earlier, there are a variety of training tools, including an online tool kit for new managers as maybe needed so that they can employ that policy in this form of hiring as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On some occasions, certainly, alternative remedies would be recommended or utilized, which take an approach that is not necessarily ending with a win/loss per se, but, to the extent that there is a tracking of those that do have a formal finding, it is 68 percent that come out in favour of the complainant.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We receive an average of 27 complaints per year.

To give some context and some background, the request for the expression of interest was issued on February 1st, and it closes February 22nd. From that point, then, obviously we will be reviewing what's in there. We would expect to review those proposals beginning on February 28th and we would have to conduct some internal reviews and no doubt engage with stakeholders further before anything further might take place. Hopefully, we would be in a position, subject to those reviews, to be soliciting for formal proposals, if we do indeed go that direction, by the summer.

I am glad the question stays on the same train of thought because I should add that officials actually have continued to engage on this topic. So, to the extent that there has been some improvement with respect to Canada Revenue Agency looking specifically to Northerners as well as trying to simplify at least a little bit the lowest return airfare, that is the benefit of having the officials continuing to engage on the day-to-day work that does impact us. Look, I'm happy to commit to checking in with my colleagues in Nunavut and Yukon to see if this is an issue that is of shared interest to us...

Yes, trips in the Northwest Territories do qualify for the travel deduction. That is specifically a maximum of two trips per year per household member, so please go take your staycation and continue to do so. For those eligible trips, Northwest Territories taxpayers are claiming, well, there's a number of different things, and I don't know if this is the right opportunity to be going through all the tax advice that people might need, but the advice is out there. In short, yes, the staycations people have been taking to support our local economy are, indeed, eligible for claiming.

No. Right at this point, there is not a formal audit that takes place of the summer student program. In general, right now, we do certainly get feedback, and the feedback as I've been told is that it's positive. It's a program that is well received by students and well received by departments as this is a great tool for them to recruit and retain northern Indigenous students. Certainly, if there are concerns, I want those concerns brought forward. I would say, at this point, out of the 84 students registered, 21 are Indigenous Aboriginal and 54 are Indigenous non-Aboriginal, and those are the...