Caroline Wawzonek

There is actually a Buy North campaign already that the department of ITI has been sponsoring. It's free for all businesses to participate in the program. It's being advertised around the Northwest Territories, though, given the question, it seems that perhaps the knowledge about the program needs to be looked at again. As for what might be done to increase or enhance the participation in the program for businesses and what we can do, I will certainly go and see if there are some best practices from my colleagues in other parts of the country, that we can employ here in advance of the...

I am certainly not one to shy away from the fact that we need to react quickly to what's happening with COVID-19 and react quickly to what's happening in the business community. However, at the same time, I am also determined that we have to maintain our due diligence before making a policy change that is to a program that has been long-standing, so I am not going to take a position here on the floor today that we will significantly alter that program going forward.

The Member has certainly given me an interesting way of approaching business relief. There are a lot of programs that are out...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is an item where there are a number of different things happening that are specific to women in the North and the response under COVID. There certainly has been funding that has been under specific pots of the relief funding that we received from the federal government that is required to go toward supporting vulnerable populations. That would be particularly people fleeing relationships of violence, certainly, the majority of which do tend to be women. There has also been funding that has been directed toward supporting women who would be more vulnerable, for...

In some ways, it's a simple yes in that that is the goal of the Department of Finance through Procurement Shared Services, to ensure that we are providing value not only, obviously, to the people of the Northwest Territories in the expenditure of public funds, but value to the business community. It really is an easy answer, in that sense, but how we do it is where it becomes more complicated. As I have indicated, we are fast-tracking efforts to have procurement review but also looking at some immediate measures that we can bring into place, hopefully before the next sitting, again, on an...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think the Member's statement earlier on actually identified that this, indeed, in large part, does involve the procurement of resources and procurement of projects through the Government of the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned in my own Minister's statement today, we acknowledge that there certainly has been a lot of discussion around ensuring that the procurement processes we have are indeed providing best benefits to the people of the Northwest Territories and the businesses of the Northwest Territories.

Again, and I know the Member acknowledged it, there is...

I certainly want to acknowledge that I appreciate these questions in the House. It brings attention to the matter. It certainly demonstrates the urgency of the issue. There are always asks and always needs, and so many of them relate to the well-being of the people of the Northwest Territories. Just to give some context, it would be $90 million in estimate to cover only 65 percent of all of our roadways in the Northwest Territories. Now, that is not the section that I recognize that the MLA is asking about. That section would be, initially, for a full coverage, about $10 million, but then...

We went out and did exactly what we said we would do, which is to get in touch with Northwestel, who are, in fact, the largest provider of cell coverage and cell services in the Northwest Territories and would be in the best place to actually be the provider of cell coverage and cell services on this stretch of highway. Having done that, we have an initial costing, and now we are at the stage of doing an evaluation on final costing. The infrastructure acquisition plan that is in front of all of us this week, if the Member is suggesting that this would make its way into that, that was not ever...

Mr. Speaker, in February, during the delivery of the budget speech, I said it was time to use creativity and innovation to find internal efficiencies. Since then, our government has had to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in my last two fiscal updates since the onset of COVID-19, I have again said that now is the time to use creativity and use this moment of heightened awareness around our fiscal situation to consider how we want to emerge from the pandemic as a government and as a territory.

The Department of Finance's mandate is to "obtain, manage, and control the financial resources...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What the government can do and what the government is doing is assessing the feasibility of this project so that we can actually determine what the actual costs will be and then be able to make an informed choice about whether or not the government can find a way to fill a gap, if there is, in fact, a gap in the market. By doing that, we can also go out and see if there may be potential partners. This may be an opportunity where the Indigenous governments of that region may want to become involved, but it's difficult to go and have that conversation in a meaningful and honest way without...