Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following four documents: Plain Language Summary for Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, No. 2; Statement of Consistency for Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, No. 2; 2024-2025 Northwest Territories Carbon Tax Report; and, the Northwest Territories Heritage Fund Annual Report 2025. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So on the study itself, Madam Chair, it does include looking at alternatives, including hydro storage, whether or not additional hydro generation is necessary, as well as the role of renewables in the region. Madam Chair, it's certainly not -- I don't want to leave the impression that it's the only work that is happening in general on resiliency. There is, I think, a fairly strong awareness within the Northwest Territories Power Corporation that this is an area that continues to be a problem repeatedly. It's not a problem in the South Slave where we have too much power...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the top-up funding that is available, we right now provide $40,000 in funding for each potential placement. This recognizes that there may be some gap between the salaries that apply to a GNWT public servant and wanting to ensure that folks are able to take on these secondments and not facing a gap to their employment level but also not burdening unnecessarily another government or Indigenous government. And so the gap is just to make sure that we're putting that money towards salaries and that in that sense would, again, make it easier to apply for any...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so this is to do with the low water events of the last couple of years. So there's a couple of different tools that are used to manage low water. One is the rate stabilization fund that people would contribute to in small portions over the course of time and to which the GNWT at times has to contribute to maintain that fund, but -- and this is the second year of funding where in order to maintain the fund to the level required by the public utilities board, the GNWT has stepped in to support because the drawdown has been more significant than what was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is part of what gets approved by the public utilities board are the term and conditions of sale both for the generation component that tends to be exclusively done by the Northwest Territories Power Corporation as well as the distribution that is done both by NTPC as well as Naka Power, and regulated utilities in Canada are not permitted to reimburse customers for damages. That is one of the standard situations that everyone in Canada does find themselves at. Regulated utilities in Canada are only allowed to charge customers for the costs to operate...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I made sure that the Minister of ECC was nodding along. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's a couple different types of funding that we see here frequently, one of which is the subsidies that we provide through territorial power support programs and also direct subsidies on the water events, for example, to keep affordability where it is. But the other type of investment, Mr. Speaker, is in the infrastructure component and in this case, Mr. Speaker, we have systems that were built in the '60s and '70s that have not been brought up to speed that we're now having to catch up on and in the meantime we do wind up with isolated grids here in the north, an...

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's correct. So that actually -- and I'm glad the Member mentioned it because there are -- it is worth noting the $3.533 million here do relate to this year's wildfire season. They are the portion of wildfire response that arrives when there's an emergency evacuation which would fall under the responsibility of MACA's emergency response team rather than the wildfire response. And so correct, that to get a full projection or a full picture of the costs for the wildfire, for any given wildfire season involved, both for the base budget for both ECE -- or for MACA as...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, firstly, just -- I mean, just briefly, there is not a let it burn policy at all. But as to the sort of nuance of the specifics of fire management or forest fire management, that certainly is well beyond my capacity in the supps to speak to. I certainly do want to, you know, listen carefully when the Minister from ECC speaks and they, you know, already do action quite a number of fires but there's quite a number that they do monitor. And that -- because they simply are trying to manage both proper forest management as well as ensuring that they're putting...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And, Madam Chair, first, just one small piece of good news. It's not fully -- the $2.479 million is offset. There are some revenues that we are anticipating coming back in, so of $1.276 million, so it's not -- it's only partially -- there is still a deficit. Now, that said, the bigger question and the longer term question is to get out of a situation where we are having to continue this. I will note, Madam Chair, that a big part of that is ensuring that we are getting CFIA certified. That would allow direct marketing and direct then sales of the product that we have in...