Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on this one, we -- the project timeline certainly has changed over a bit of time. So previously, when this was approved for a three-year project starting in 2023-2024, it was approved as $1.715 million, and that has become clear, as the project's got underway working with the chief information officer, that this would be insufficient so there's been now an additional amount added to the budget, and it's been approved over four years which has extended the project further, and that is leading to some of the funding that was previously allocated to 2024-2025...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This certainly is an unfortunate situation of having a further significant overage but on an asset that is of crucial importance to the community and to young people in the region who attend this school obviously, so it is a project that's several years old now and it was, unfortunately, one that was subject to some delays starting, if I'm not mistaken, prior to COVID and that immediately starts to lead us into a situation where project budgets did face some significant challenges, that things changed quite a bit quite substantially in terms of supplies, supply chains...

Yes, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I certainly can confirm that the department is aware there are a number of upcoming games, really, over the next -- every one of the next fiscal years, whether, you know -- and as such -- so yes, they're aware of them, they're planning for them. Again, the challenge has become knowing what the kind of costs for travel might look like as well as what the kinds of revenue losses may or may not continue to be over time. But they are being planned for, so to that extent, again, I'm not necessarily in a position to predict the cost but other than just to assure that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, Mr. Chair, this will not be fully complete in the coming fiscal year. Where we're at at this point is that there -- the MIT system is expected to be fully replaced over the course of this fiscal year, and then MARS as a whole, best guess here that I can give, Mr. Chair, with fair limited -- with the sort of limited notes that I would have for the purposes of this supplementary appropriation is that will happen in the following fiscal year, so in roughly a year and a half from now, and then over the course of that fiscal year, so 2026-2027, some of the timing issues...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is work underway. This is a problem that was anticipated; it's not new. And so there is, of course, the Northwest Territories active living framework. It is a framework that is, you know, covering the next several years right through until 2033, and in that framework, I can certainly report -- I'm happy to report that there are some new funding agreements that are being signed with different sports partners, different territorial sports organizations, not for the coming fiscal year but for the year after which, you know, hopefully, will start to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, there absolutely is a limit. It is -- it's whether or not a project's request for carryover complies with the financial administration manual, and so that is specifically whether or not there's already a contractual obligation in place or if a department can demonstrate that there's been substantial progress on a project. And so, you know, if a project is slowly moving along, it will, in theory, meet that test -- I say in theory because it is still subject to approval by the financial management board. So all projects where departments are seeking...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This specific amount of funding, Mr. Chair, is suggested in order to help fund the cost associated with 2026 Arctic Winter Games which will be held in Whitehorse March 18th to 15th of 2026. The funds do need to be confirmed well enough in advance for teams to be selected and the associated coaching and support staff to be selected, and so that's why it is coming through now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just bear with me for one moment, Mr. Chair. This project has now been underway since 2022-2023 and the solution, as it does sometimes prove to be the case with a number of different IT projects, what was initially expected to be the final solution has proven to, in fact, be more difficult in terms of it not aligning to the needs of this -- of the office. So at this time, Mr. Chair, yeah, so that did delay the project that we didn't have -- it wasn't -- the suitability of the originally anticipated solution. So instead, what we are looking to do is it's called the one...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: 2023/2024 Report on the Departmental Indigenous Employment Plans Results. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.