Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not going to touch the lawyer comment. I'll keep my opinions to myself. Just looking around compensation and benefits, I note that again during the pandemic, we were at a much lower cost. We have increased. Is this the compensation for the judges, etcetera, that was recently approved? Is that why we're seeing such a large jump there? Thank you.

I think I've got a few more minutes left. So I'm really glad to hear that we didn't just decide to kind of go backwards in time and that we are keeping up with some of these opportunities. And I think that's great if people don't have to travel when they don't need to. Is it safe then to assume that some of this upgrade then is the increase for the materials and supply costs for this unit? There's looks to be about $100,000 that was during the pandemic time versus last year and this year or the upcoming year. I'm just curious to know if that's for that type of service. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister was responding to my question before that one. I asked how much of the $20 million that has already been secured and is being used towards all the work that she's listed, like the regulatory and the prefeasibility, how much of that is being retained with northern businesses and how much is being sole sourced to former bureaucrats? Thank you.

Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Power Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we know, building infrastructure across the million square kilometres that make up our territory is a huge challenge. From an economic point of view and from an efficiency standpoint, we should be looking to expand our infrastructure corridors to benefit communities and encourage investment in the territory wherever we can.

As often mentioned in this House, the NWT is largely dependent on diesel and gasoline for heating, electricity, and transportation. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we sit stalled on a renewable energy project that could connect more communities to...

And lastly I guess just a quick question around contract services, which was the opposite of everything else I've been talking about was quite higher during the last year of the pandemic. Dropped again post, and then came back up. What sort of contract services are those? Are they around supports for the actual process there or is it stuff that, you know, is helping with victim services, things like that? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm really excited to hear that. You know, I think it would be an amazing opportunity to offer, like, you know, go berry picking with an elder when we have people coming into the North. And as well too just all the mental health advantages of, you know, growing our own food and working with the earth and etcetera so I'm really happy to hear that.

I guess I just want to come back to something we talked about before the pandemic took over our lives, and that was the lack of anything around in the downtown core. In the winter months, when we do have the Aurora tours...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think another just to further make a little bit more points or comments around that is that also one of the issues that I hear around having construction camps and mining and other industry around is sort of the byproduct of the partying, etcetera, that may come from some of the workers that do come into town. So another point there for pushing for camps is that in a camp situation, the camp can regulate workers returning to the camp in the evening therefore limiting the amounts of alcohol that they can consume and then be, you know, creating trouble in our downtown...

Drin Gwiinzii, Mr. Speaker. February is Indigenous Languages Month in Canada, and once again the Northwest Territories proves unique in that we are the only political region in Canada which recognizes 11 official languages, nine of which are Indigenous. Indigenous Languages Month is an opportunity to celebrate the NWT's unique culture and heritage, once again emphasizing how important it is that we preserve and revitalize Indigenous languages. We will achieve this through their everyday use, indepth educational program, and new technology such as apps, ensuring these languages survive for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is what this seems to me, and I hear a lot of what the description about the gender equity unit does actually seem to me to quite overlap with some of the work that is being done by the Status of Women. So, again, just like our shelter situation where we put it on NGOs that can't afford to pay proper wages to do work, it seems like this is another one of those types of situations where we underfund an NGO to do work but then we have a parallel department or other department doing some of that work. Those people are making more money. They're getting better...