Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025; and Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditure), No. 1, 2024-2025. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I believe that this is actually a multi-year agreement with the federal government. I believe, in fact, a four-year agreement. Thank you. So yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't know if I have that kind of detail here. I mean, this was work that was planned for Highway No. 3. There are regular patrols done of all the highways and then planned works get done along a fairly complicated schedule that -- or complicated chart that I certainly have looked at and seen semi-regularly that shows every single highway in the North, all of the different areas of need, and ranks all of them. So this one would have come through that process, and then it was a matter of determining which types of funding are available from the federal...

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the question. With respect to the last budget, there is more items in that budget than just the $10 million, but it's not necessarily because of a forced growth or new initiatives. Things do come up through the course of a year. There can be a number of different reasons why things would come up or that things might be approved and that they might even out. So every department is responsible for bringing forward their budget, for managing their budget, and bringing that to the financial management board. The financial management board then uses the information that's...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I believe all of this funding actually came from WAGE Canada, so it came from one source within the department -- within the federal system but is being split between different departments to undertake different steams. There was a number of different pillars under which the federal money was allotted. And so we were able to utilize those different streams to achieve different goals within departments but it's ultimately achieving, you know, a whole-of-government approach towards ending gender-based violence, which is how we approached the problem, so that's...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't have detail here as to exactly what challenges there may have been, I mean aside from having been in this government and seeing the community of Hay River go through a number of various challenges and emergencies over the last couple of years, but I can say that we are expecting the design to be completed here 2025-2026, so that much is on schedule, and construction would be starting as soon as possible thereafter. And yes, Mr. Chair, the construction -- well yes, and in fact I can say with a little more certainty, Mr. Chair, that it was the 2021 flood...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's still a lot more work to do if we're going to hit that $150 million mark, and much of that will depend on what happens in this House when we are discussing budgets, capital and main estimates, and determining what we put in them and what we might need to take out of them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, actually, quite fortunately I'm pleased to have that question. I'm actually really glad to have that question. We certainly don't want members of the public to be out and concerned. So I can say that right initially -- again, as I said earlier, it was within two days there was engineers on site doing a full site assessment and they did testing on site. They also then pulled the piece that was damaged, did further testing on that piece. But what they've done since is they've actually went back and looked at all 23 other remaining connecters, and they've done...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is my understanding of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was just looking for an exact date in any of my materials, but I can say that if it's here at the beginning of November and, as I said, we're looking to mobilize the construction at the same time, folks should be able to be using it this calendar year. Thank you.