Caroline Wawzonek

I can, Mr. Chair, in about eight seconds, so that I get everyone's names and titles ready.

Might be slightly longer than that, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the good news is there is now going to be funding available. It just wasn't known at the time that the main estimates were being concluded and put -- they do go to the printers a little earlier than just in the days before session begins, and we hadn't yet had confirmation from the federal government that we'd get a renewal of this. We've been looking to get this program renewed. It's a significant amount of money, 17-some million dollars in a year. And when that was lost, it did curtail a lot of energy efficiency programming. The department tried to do...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly some of the details that are still being worked out. I don't want to misspeak in that this is still a private company and they have a number of contracts elsewhere, so I don't want to speak out of turn. But, again, the point here was one where we would pilot this in a way that if there are sufficient cost savings and that can help offset those costs, and if there's not then this may be a pilot that doesn't go much farther. Again, the company's very confident in their technology, and that gives us the confidence to be able to move forward and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is that -- I am not sure if that's specifically on the Dehk'e Frank Channel Bridge. Yeah, okay. So I mean, certainly Bridgeworks -- I don't have the bridge specifically in front of me right now, Mr. Chair. I will see what information we can find. But I can say there's been a number of significant increases in terms of -- the cost of steel has not really come down since the time of -- for instance, since really when COVID had resulted in some pretty significant increases, and there's also been ongoing supply chain issues, and this bridge did experience some not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the big reason that there is a pilot running in the community of Fort Simpson is, in fact, to confirm whether or not the fairly significant infrastructure costs associated with this particular battery optimization system will be offset by savings in diesel fuel. If that is the case and if that can therefore offset those costs, then we may well see that this is an opportunity for us in other communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it is, I think, actually slightly more than what it was previously. So, yeah, $17.8 million. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not to my knowledge, Mr. Speaker. But I would be more than happy to put that on the radar of the health recruitment unit. They have been very busy, have seen a lot of success, have met their targets of recruitment, and if this is an opportunity to see more recruitment then we will certainly work with perhaps a non-profit or a non-government entity to see if there's a chapter that could be opened here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the electric vehicles charging station that is -- that work -- let me just see here. Actually, Mr. Chair, let me see if the deputy minister or assistant deputy minister might have the details on that, please.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, again, there's 11 departments, multiple different types of services. There's Tlicho, TCSA already, and district education authority services. So there already are some services that are delivered directly, then there are other services that go through the North Slave regional office. And the effort, as I understand, of having a working group set up with the Tlicho government is to ensure exactly that we do not have duplication between our governments or between what's happening in the region and in headquarters functions. So that work does need to get...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, let me send this first to assistant deputy minister Wickens, please.