Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take the opportunity today to congratulate Yellowknife South constituent Margaret Henderson on being the recipient of the MACA Outstanding Elder Volunteer of the Year Award for 2021.

It was obvious from the words on her nomination form as to all the reasons she should be the recipient of this year's award, with examples of hard work that she has contributed to the Food Rescue Yellowknife since it began back in 2008.

I'd like to echo the praise we heard yesterday from the Minister of MACA acknowledging Ms. Henderson's contribution from the very earliest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can go and look into the specific number the Member is quoting. My understanding is that when the GNWT purchased the Mactung asset, we did so and that became our asset. Canada, of course, owns the Cantung property. And at this point, the two parties tother are agreeing to market those assets as one and as such, as we go forward, there's nothing more owed to the GNWT by North American Tungsten. So again, I'll double check to confirm if there's some misunderstanding on what's on there, Mr. Speaker. At this point, we're proceeding with a process that's well...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So Mr. Speaker, the labour market supplement was something that we didn't have before. It does provide a tool. Given that the collective agreement is the bargaining document on which all of the salaries are based, all the recruitment any recruitment bonuses would be based, the total package of salary is based. So to go outside of that to offer something extra, we had to create this labour market supplement that would give us that proper tool or that basis on which to do that. In that policy, it does state that, of course, still the UNW remains the representative for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And Mr. Speaker, the Member's quite right. This certainly speaks to the experience we've all had during COVID19. But this was something that was considered even before that. It's a direction that a lot of the public service sorry, the human resources experts are starting to look at across Canada. We want to be a workplace that is keeping up with the direction of human resources approaches. We want to be a workplace that is considered attractive to bring people here and not so that people will leave and want to have that flexibility for folks who may be outside of a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as of January 31st, there are 31 employees on active duty working outside of the territory. That represents about .4 percent of the total work force. The majority the vast majority of those, of course, would have been approved by their supervisors prior to this policy taking effect. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure I would accept or agree with the characterization of "mismanagement" on this. I think the story has yet to be finished and is yet to be written. Indeed, as I've said, staff from the Department of ITI are quite active right now in terms of doing their due diligence and hoping for a positive outcome on the sale. In fact, if anything, Mr. Speaker, this has been an example where although at the time of the sale there was some disagreements perhaps between Canada and the GNWT about how to proceed, we were able to set aside what differences there...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, these two properties were, of course, jointly owned previously by North American Tungsten. So not particularly unusual that we'd be looking to have them sold together now. What made it a bit more unusual is that you're involving multiple layers of governments. We've got the Government of Canada and the GNWT and even the Yukon government's involved to a certain degree in terms of this being the Cantung property being in the Yukon. All three, we're all coming together. There's governments in the region have come together. Much discussion has taken place...

Mr. Speaker, I am not here to speak on behalf of the union. That would not be appropriate. It's a relationship that I have a great deal of respect for. So I'm not going to combat out and detail what their own reasons would be and be certainly seen to be speaking on their behalf.

Mr. Speaker, we are in a situation where in the course of a pandemic, we have held firm on not having cutbacks to our services and not having cuts to the public service. But to do that, we are running a lean operation. And so to be able to be offering any kind of additional bonuses and salary on top of the existing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the public service annual report certainly is one place that we might be able to report on this. I have no concern in saying that we will definitely be able to report back, just as we are today, about the total number of residents who might be working either outside of the territory or who are working in some sort of remote arrangement and whether that is in the public service report or whether somewhere on our website. I will see that it does get published somewhere and inform the Members when we've made that decision as to what's the best place to do that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the ability to work outside of the territory is meant to be for exceptional purposes only, and "exceptional" is really just that. It's, for example, if you have a child who has to get medical care, specialized medical care for a period of time that is not available here and you need to go care for your child, well, that's pretty exceptional. It is not for people who simply prefer to live somewhere else, who might have family that they'd like to see. It's not a matter of convenience. It is for exceptional purposes only.

And you know, I don't want to preempt...