Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can say that the I mean, we certainly have been receiving funding from the federal government under the sustainable Canadian agricultural partnership. This is a fiveyear investment by the federal government in the agrifood sector. And for us, we are expecting over $7.6 million over the life of that agreement here to the Northwest Territories which is, I would note, a 25 percent increase on numbers we were getting under the last agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here this evening to present Bill 92, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Products and Carbon Tax Act, No. 3. The purpose of Bill 92 is to add carbon tax revenues sharing grants sharing community grants and annual reporting requirements to the carbon tax legislation. This bill represents our final collaborative effort to revise the territorial carbon tax regime to meet federal 2023 to 2030 carbon pricing benchmarks.

As part of March 23rd discussions concerning Bill 60, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Products and Carbon Tax Act, we worked together to better mitigate the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, indeed, the an Indigenous Employment Policy was the subject of what was being consulted upon and various drafts were put out for review and for consideration and, indeed, if that were to be the direction that we go, that would end the now 30 someyearold Affirmative Action Policy and bring with it the implementation of a new policy. It may be, Mr. Speaker, particularly given the timing, that we would want to delay implementation or we may want to make it, you know, a pilot or something that gives us a bit of breathing space, recognizing where we are in our...

Yes, please, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to be able to table this report. This has been a long time coming in terms of the work happening around affirmative action but, more importantly, around the hiring of Indigenous Northerners to the public service. And, Mr. Speaker, I can certainly say that the commitment of the Department of Finance and Human Resources to seeing achievement in terms of actual diversity and inclusion in public service remains firm.

With respect to what will happen next, Mr. Speaker, this is a policy that is of the executive council, and so there has...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so I certainly can speak to what is in the What We Heard report that came forward as a result of the engagement that was undertaken regarding the Affirmative Action Policy. And in that, Mr. Speaker, the recommendation there really is, again, that the Affirmative Action Policy is out of date, that it is inadequate, that this is unnecessarily complex. And coming from that, what was also contained in that report is that there be an Indigenous Employment Policy to offer priority hiring to Indigenous persons. That is an area where we all know that we have failed...

. Mr. Speaker, today I am very honoured to be speaking about the first Northwest Territories female athlete to win gold at the Special Olympics World Games.

Applause

Mr. Speaker, this is Yellowknife South resident Chelsey Makaro. And if you have the chance or ability where you are sitting to look up, she has brought her medals with her.

Applause

Mr. Speaker, this past summer, Ms. Makaro traveled to Berlin, Germany, as part of Team Canada to attend the Special Olympics World Summer Games. The games are held every two years and offer athletes with intellectual disabilities an opportunity to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd go back to looking at, really, the purpose of government renewal short term, gathering information and evidence. We do like to talk about having datadriven decisions, about having evidencebased decisionmaking. You can't do that without the data, and you can't do it without the evidence. We had to get that in place, and it has taken quite some time, Mr. Speaker, because we are doing it over the entire Government of the Northwest Territories in a way that has never been done before.

Mr. Speaker, along the way, we found there was over 200 different programs...

Madam Chair, if I could turn to to Kelly Bluck, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I can say we have departments of ITI, infrastructure, lands have all been involved, and the Stantec professional engineers out of Vancouver who do marine assessments are the ones that were involved. So I am hopeful that the information we get to the Member will allay his concerns. Thank you.