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.
Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to make that commitment here today. Again, I'm live to the challenges of transportation infrastructure in the North and the fact that we are challenged with our transportation infrastructure in the North, but doing a feasibility study at this point, given the challenges that we're having and given that we're right now trying to get the Mackenzie Valley Highway done, it may well be that we're in a situation where we want to get one thing done and then we can move on to looking at the next. But at this point, that's not a project that is on the near horizon. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, until 1997, the dredging of the Hay River harbour was, in fact, completed by Public Works and Government Services Canada on behalf of Transport Canada. Indeed, the coast guard does rely on the accessible channel and the ability to move their ships and vessels through this very same space. However, for reasons I'm certainly not privy to, between 1997 and 2012, that started to change. The GNWT was relying on funding and started to undertake the work. There was still at that time a memorandum of understanding with the Canadian coast guard and Department of...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 31)
Sorry, Mr. Chair. I realize I didn't quite finish my thought before I finished speaking. It's into next fiscal year. So the 2025.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to do justice to the process that is undertaken. There is a risk-based analysis that's done. It's done -- it comes up through -- from frontline department staff through to each individual department. There is a peer review process that then goes on where the ranking is reviewed, it goes to an ADM committee where it's again reviewed, and only at that point projects that make it through that process with sufficiently high ranking go on to the deputy ministers and then ultimately on to the financial management board to determine which project might...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate that question. NTPC is very conscious of the fact that they play such a critical role in the Northwest Territories. There's a lot happening on this front. Right now they are working on a continuous improvement initiative which is meant to help manage their project management -- or to improve rather the project management. So, and coming from that one of the things is to look at the Inuvik project and do a bit of a lessons learned, do a bit of a post review of what went wrong and what could be done better. A lot of things went right. It...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there was a number of challenges that arose in 2019 or post 2019 where budgets and projects that were in the past Assembly -- actually two Assemblies ago now, then run up against COVID. There was a number of delays and as really I think everyone out there, whether it's government procurement or private procurement, saw increases in the huge numbers in terms of what kinds of impacts fuel had, inflation had, interest rates had, labour market challenges had, and the government is no stranger to that. So what we saw across the private sphere certainly impacted...
That's definitely a little outside of my wheelhouse, Mr. Speaker. And I'm honestly just going off of a briefing I happen to have about where I was present with the Minister for housing. So I don't want to commit on her behalf. I know that she feels it's a priority. Again, brought that initiative forward to really help this Assembly to understand how things happen there. So I will commit to getting a number -- or to getting a date, and we'll make sure that that comes back to the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to say it again. At this point, the conversation has only just begun. So we've put Ottawa on notice that we're going to be coming to them in order to make this request, that there's more information coming. Our offices here in the Department of Finance and Fiscal Policy are looking at what kind of options we are going to be looking at, what kinds of needs we might have, what is on the capital plan for the next several years, what is in in the operational plan for the next several years. Mr. Speaker, if the Member doesn't believe me when I answered...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Housing NWT does indeed, it's correct, take under -- undertake, rather, its own capital needs assessment process and that then -- and, frankly, starting from their own LHO. So each individual LHO is feeding up into the Housing NWT's system and then ultimately those reports are coming forward to financial management board when there's an ask put forward to support additional funding based on that work that was happening within the housing LHO to Housing NWT and then to determine what the needs might be. So it still is part of the total fiscal financial...
