Katrina Nokleby

Mr. Speaker, yesterday marked the United Nations' International Day of Women and Girls in Sciences; sadly, something I wasn't aware of until after I had done my Member's statement for the day. However, as I think every day we should be focused on this important topic, I've decided to speak on it today, as well.

My career prior to politics, for those who may not be aware, was in engineering, and one of my passions in life is advancing the opportunities for women and non-binary people in the field of science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. You may have heard me quote the statistic in...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, you just reiterated what I said, which is that it's going to be dependent on that, so again, I really struggle with why we sit here and have these numbers that are not realistic, creating extra work for ourselves later on to come back and adopt. The answer coming back is, "Well, this is what we do." Well, you are the government; it's what you do. I do believe changes can be made. You just commented that this one could be made, so I am not sure why then that argument flies for other areas, such as travel, et cetera. Yes. More and more, I just feel like this creates...

I think I heard a commitment in there to ask us for our inputs on spending the extra money, so I am happy with that. Those are all my questions. Thanks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am just looking at the line for fees and payments, how in the actuals it was at the $9,000, and then it has gone up. I notice a few times we had actuals which were quite a bit lower, which makes sense given COVID. However, could the Minister speak to whether or not there was any exercise done to look at perhaps not going back to the original budgets before and doing a bit of a sort of fat-cutting or leaning of budgets now that COVID has sort of changed the operating world we are in? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I know what a contingency is. I am curious to know what you anticipate you would be now accruing or what would be occurring under capital leases. Do you expect to hire more people for the government and have to expand office space? I'm just curious to know why that's showing up there as a contingency. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am really excited to one day be able to drive across that bridge, as I have spent a lot of time in Tulita, so I am pretty excited to hear that. My last question just has to do with funding. Will the Minister commit to pressing for 100 percent dollars for northern infrastructure funding, particularly for northern highways? Will she commit to being a thorn in the side of every FPT table that she is on to impress upon them the urgency for this money for the North? It must start now, not in years, or we will lose too many businesses in the meantime. Thank you.

Yes, that would be great if the Minister could provide that. Can the Minister provide us with an update on the tendering for the Prohibition Creek Access Road, a project which is currently infusing $15 million of federal infrastructure money into the Northwest Territories? Can the Minister outline how that project will lead to increased training and economic opportunity for Northwest Territories residents?

If I sound like a broken record, it's because I have often spoken about the need for all season roads. However, I do so again to urge my colleague, the Minister of Infrastructure, to go back to her federal tables and demand better for us; demand that we receive 100 percent funding to build our roads. They are literally the road to economic recovery for many northern businesses. Given the infrastructure deficit the federal government has left us in, the promised highway in the 1970s that never materialized, it is time we remind the Government of Canada that this was not our doing, and that it...

Thank you for that. Forgive me if I do not hold a lot of optimism in the GNWT's renewal and studying and the siloed approach, to then again bringing down our silos as we go through department by department. I really do not see that this is going to lead to a lot other than talking for the next two years, nothing changing, and we continue on in the exact same manner. More of a comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am just going to ask about the net fiscal benefit transfer to the Aboriginal parties. I'm probably duplicating maybe some of what my colleague was asking around the Heritage Fund, but my understanding is based on percentages of royalties that are earned from the mineral resources sector. Understandably, this is why 2019-2020 is quite a bit lower, but then, again, like everywhere else, we come back to pre-COVID estimations again. I think it's really optimistic to think that we are going to be getting the same type of royalties that we were getting pre-COVID going...