Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it should be $64,740,000 I believe, Madam Chair. Let me just confirm that or actually, I'll just ask the deputy minister if he has the page open in front of him.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 20212022, there were 13 employees who accessed funding to take Indigenous Management Training Development. And to date in 20222023, we have two applications pending to access this program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there were a number of reasons well, there's a number of different funds operated, as the Member has indicated, and the different funds, there was different reasons why they may not have gone all out initially. But it is my understanding now that with COVID19 behind us and various challenges associated to that that there should be some money going out.

There's initiatives, including Arctic Energy Alliance programs, GHG grant programs. There was some low uptake under the industry buildings GHG grant program but, again, my understanding is that some of that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there's nothing currently appropriated that's not well, if it's not showing up here, it's not coming in as an appropriation at this time. I think it is probably reasonable to assume that more is going to be needed before we get to the point of a polytechnic. But that, we'll have to stay tuned for that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, we are characterizing the events differently. I wouldn't characterize it as a saga nor would I say that the story has ended or is closed. As I had mentioned at the beginning, there are still confidential discussions underway. I am still hopeful to have a positive update here at the end that might close out the chapter. And at that point whether there are lessons to be learned in one direction or another, that would be the time to do that consideration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this is intended to go out to the operators. It's an extension of funding that is coming through the federal government in this case. Areas that we're targeting here is marketing and promotions, the operations again of tourism operators themselves, their capacity development, so training. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, you might recall that during COVID, we actually had increased the supplementary reserve to I believe it was $60 million. So that certainly is there is an option to increase. We kept it at 35, which is higher than it traditionally had been, and it may well be that for Budget 2023 we want to look at moving back up again. So again, certainly under consideration. As I say, that's a number that has moved around during COVID. So thank you, I appreciate the idea. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a joint decision made, quite some time ago now, between GNWT and Canada to attempt to market those two properties, Cantung and Mactung together. And that effort was underway to have a joint effort and a joint RFP out seeking to seek prequalified proposals. I believe that is the item that the Member was mentioning earlier with respect to the publication on the Supreme Court of British Columbia's court filing with respect to that not having yielded any positive results. But there do continue to be discussions by the GNWT, and we are stay remaining hopeful that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I wish there would have been the ability to give more of an update back when we were doing the main estimates as well. I think we all did. But it was really a time of significant transition and flux with COVID19 at that time so it was difficult to pin down exactly the timing or the amounts. So this is before us now.

With respect to more generally what's happening, there are efforts here to reflect a transition. That transition is not only out of COVID but into hopefully better system capacity given the impacts of COVID over the last two years and given...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it's an excellent question. I'm happy to answer it although the news isn't necessarily good.

If we exceed the supplementary reserve, essentially what we are likely to be doing is any projected surplus would likely get dipped into in a sense. So if there was a projected surplus and we run out of supplementary needs and we continue to have more needs, then we're likely eating into that projected surplus. Thank you, Madam Chair.