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.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left, I have Kim Wickens, assistant deputy minister for energy, strategic infrastructure, and supply chains. And on my right, Miranda Bass, the director of corporate services.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 79)
Oh, sorry, Mr. Chair. It is in the -- it's in the capital budget, and so that's why -- yeah, I was thinking it's not showing up on this budget, which is our operations, but there is an amount budgeted for capital for the coming year. So we were just able to pull it up over here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, with respect to specific outages, there is this process I've already described. It is formally done but with respect to capital planning, there is a capital planning process that does take place within NTPC in terms of the staff who are involved with outage investigation and reviews but also involved in terms of wanting to deliver upon their mandate as an organization. Anything that is over 5 million, which for a lot of more major investments, certainly would be. That also gets reviewed by the public utilities board. And, of course, I will just...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 79)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I couldn't agree more, and I spend an awful lot of time wondering and worrying what has happened to our energy systems and why we find ourselves in the situation that we are in. Without finding customers who are not residential customers and who are large-scale customers, it is going to be very difficult to meaningfully and sustainably bring down the cost of power other than through subsidies from the government, which really just takes away resources from the government that could be spent on other programs and services and/or obviously requires us to, you...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I think I will be more succinct and just say this is a good opportunity for us to provide this response in writing. There are training opportunities through ITI, ECE, perhaps through MACA, NWTAC, and, again, I won't have all of those at my fingertips here, and I want to do my best to make sure we provide that information. It's important, and there are opportunities available in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 79)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it is due any day to me, so I don't know exactly where it is in terms of its print but I suspect it's at a stage of fairly final draft. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that's a fairly long list of folks that are being named, and this is likely one where there's strategic energy initiatives that reside with me and yet management of our facilities with, of course, Minister for Infrastructure and may well involve some work from MACA with respect to what's happening at a community level. So I'd certainly like to say that if it's a question of simply coordinating or ensuring that the right people are talking to each other that that's probably pretty easy to do. So let me take that back, Mr. Speaker, if there's something simple...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 79)
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, I agree it's a lot of money, and I think it's probably appropriate to put that out in some writing so that I am not just spitballing that size of a dollar fund. I mean, certainly some of it -- there are quite a large number of groups involved, and so to the extent of there being, you know, work happening with each group to discern the traditional knowledge, traditional knowledge studies, those are amounts that are provided directly to Indigenous communities and governments. So there's three groups, three Indigenous nations involved, but each one then also...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 79)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I suspect we will be able to find that number here in just the next few minutes. I don't have it at the tip of my fingers, but somebody else does.
$18,265,000 in previous years, Mr. Chair.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 78)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there was a decrease in the years just to give time for discussions that had been underway with the Tlicho government, and as a result of which the funding was moved to a different year to better align with the expected timeline of the project. The good news that I have this year is that those discussions are much further along. I am hopeful that there will be more formal announcements in fairly short order from now to allow the Tlicho government to be the lead on the project with support from the GNWT as appropriate but that this project now will be on track...
