Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have any comments or response. Thank you.

Yes I do.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. The Member actually identified a couple of the reasons why the money was not spent, quite outside necessarily the control or exclusive control of the government. With respect to the commitment that he is seeking, I would suggest that we turn this to the Minister of Infrastructure, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure that there is much to be added. I appreciate the recognition that, to do the work of government, you have to actually do the work of government. That does mean that you have to have people doing the work and you have to coordinate the work, and you have to spend money to get it done. Fighting COVID and implementing the measures we have costs money, and the Member actually does point out quite accurately that, as of right now, the federal government is providing us with an amount that brings down the net cost to the GNWT of just over $8 million. I'm going to...

Madam Speaker, I wish to table the following four documents: "2019 Socio-Economic Agreement Report for Mines Operating in the Northwest Territories," Economic Context of Ekati Diamond Mine Closing;" the "2019 Survey of Mining Employees: Northwest Territories Bureau of Statistics;" and "2019 Ekati Diamond Mine Socio-Economic Agreement Report." Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. I am happy to continue to follow up on that. Actually, I do not think I mentioned it in this context. Mr. Chair, there have been quite a number of opportunities already for me to have a direct connection with the tourism association and the tourism industry. In fact, I am up in front of them tomorrow with a bit of a Q and A, so there may well be some very direct opportunity within the next 14 or so hours to have that Q and A with representatives from industry and from businesses in the industry. I take the Member's point.

I do want to defend the program a little bit...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am happy to make a monthly commitment. The Department of Finance will be collecting monthly variance reports on the COVID secretariat spending and can make those public as they are available. It does take some time, so September 30th, it does not mean we necessarily put it out on September 30th, Mr. Chair. When it does get gathered and reported and analyzed, it can take a couple of weeks, but we will be getting them and putting them out on a monthly basis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of course, the IBAs themselves are confidential themselves as between the industry proponents and the Indigenous governments themselves, but by continuing to be engaged with both Indigenous governments as well as with the industry, we're certainly able to help navigate the development and the strengthening of all of those levels of cooperation and collaboration. I'll go back to what I had mentioned earlier, which is the development of regional mineral development strategies which helps give a voice to individual regions so that they can better finetune what it is they want to see out of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is growth and recovery by investing in tourism. The Member makes a good point. It's not necessarily meant at the relief stage. It's not targeting the relief stage that is, obviously, needed by a lot of businesses. There're a number of programs both within the GNWT but also from the federal government that are much more directly targeted at relief. The growth and recovery by investing in tourism has three different streams, if you will, under which individual businesses can apply. The first one is for new product development or innovation meant to be for, again...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know that the Premier's office has engaged in a pretty wide variety of conversations and engagements over the last little while, so I'd ask that we direct that to the Premier, please.