Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Madam Chair. First off, I would just like to make a comment that I am glad to see this is one area where the travel budget has gone down for once, so perhaps there has been a little bit more of a COVID lens put on that one. As well, I am really happy to see that there is an increase in funding, or more than was spent in 2019, towards the Metis organizations. I guess my question is around the NWT friendship centres and the fact that we are no longer funding money there. I know that I have been approached by friendship centres, EDs et cetera, asking for that funding to continue. I...

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...

Thank you. I do appreciate that the Minister is cautious about wanting to not take things away that later on are not going to be able to be added back or easily added back. However, I do know that there have to be some very obvious things that are not going to be coming back for the next year, let alone two to three or four years after that, so I kind of wish or I do wish that the government had taken both of the approaches, really. My comment on that is that -- you are waving at me; I have lost my train of thought -- that there should have been. Yes, so my question would be: Would the...

I'm still curious to know what those potentially could perhaps be, but I will move on. I just wanted to come back to some comments made by my colleagues around coming close to the debt limit. I, too, am concerned to see that we are doing a lot of borrowing now and spending a lot of money in what I feel like should start to become more of an austerity type time, not taking on new debt.

However, that being said, when the Minister commented around what she thinks will reduce that or not make us hit that limit, it was about comments around Health and Social Services or the health authorities and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Trying to dive through all of this, I am looking at the line item for the capital leases under the Government of the Northwest Territories subheading. I note that we currently don't have debt on the books or projected for the end of 2022; however, there is the $500,000 in contingency noting that the contingency is based on the working capital requirements. As the note says: Does the government anticipate that they are going to take on new debt or some sort of new expense here that we haven't currently been spending money on? Thank you.

I know I sound like a bit of a broken record, but I am always going to continue to bring up infrastructure and repeatedly ask the same questions. Can the Minister provide a timeline for the completion of the Great Bear River Bridge, including any unforeseen delays or difficulties due to the COVID situation?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Infrastructure. Can the Minister please outline the plan for the upcoming fiscal year with respect to highway projects and any plans for reconstruction efforts? What I would like to hear is: What is different about this upcoming year versus other years, and has there been an increase to budget for road works in the North? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We always talk about how the North is such a unique place, and one thing that makes it so is our reliance on our winter road network. The allure and mystique of these multi-million-dollar annual ventures is so powerful it even spurred an entire television series, helping to put the NWT on the international stage. However exciting these roads are and how beautiful they are to drive, it must be pointed out that we spend millions of dollars every year building infrastructure that melts, not exactly a fiscally responsible situation.

The Mackenzie Valley Highway was completed...

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...