Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly was listening earlier to the Member's statement to the concern that the process is unwieldy and difficult. It is not a GNWT process, Mr. Speaker. It is a process governed by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation to which we're a member. But it is not unfortunately, a process that I can directly change. We have offered support in the past. And I've not had anything raised to me until now that there's been any delays. So we're going to keep an eye on that. I'll certainly make inquiries to see if, in fact, there's been other delays. And if so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, firstly, just the Northwest Territories Power Corporation has its own policies so I'm not in a position to speak to what efforts they may or may not have done on their end.

With respect to the GNWT's policy, we certainly did consider the cost mainly in the form, obviously, of the PPE but particularly of testing. I anticipate the costs of PPE, we're not expecting that to be significant. But certainly the cost of tests can grow to be more significant over time. We do have some estimates. There's ranges of low to high. It depends obviously on what number of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, those communications have gone out in a variety of forms. At this point, our website is currently up to date explaining the policy and has a fairly detailed Q and A on it.

One of the next steps though, Mr. Speaker, and I expect it will be out this week, if not early this week, is that each department was asked to look at their specific work site and provide a determination of what appropriate PPE might be. Everyone's individual work site certainly will have individual requirements that allow them to operate safely if the worker is choosing not to submit...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the items that were redacted were redacted in keeping with the ATIPP process, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Many of those redactions were in fact mandatory. They are not discretionary. If it is information that pertains to another individual, and there's been a name a person that is named alongside other information, such as their place of employment, then that is I believe  and I'm not the ATIPP coordinator here, Mr. Speaker, but I believe that that would then be mandatory. So other elements may be discretionary. Had I known...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for the Sahtu, that Bill 35, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 20212022 be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would gladly defer the question to another Minister, Mr. Speaker.

Laughter

Minister, thank you, and thank you for that question. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member mentioned the idea of context, and challenge of having minutes to work off of, and I acknowledge the Member is working off of minutes that have been redacted, is that, in fact, you don't necessarily have the full context. I have gone back to the department and specifically ask about this.

I would agree that I certainly was concerned to read that there might be inappropriate assistance happening. I was reassured, and I'm happy to be...

Well, so, again, Mr. Speaker, this is an the area of the arts, it's an area with joint responsibility between ECE and ITI. So it's not a simple question that I have the opportunity to say yes or no to. It's a question to which there needs to be discussion between us, between the two departments, as well as with the various councils and commissions that already exist. The arts program, the film commission for example. You know, and determining what it is that the community would benefit most from. I can say I've had inquiries to my office under ITI from members of the arts community in this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having a sense of where some questions go because it gives a chance for those of us working multidepartmentally to have some conversations and thanks to the folks at Health and Social Services, I can note there are in fact five territorial family violence shelters across different regions of the Northwest Territories. And I'm also pleased to note that given that these are territorial resources, that travel can be provided for women and children who live in communities outside of one with a shelter and no one should ever think that not having a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as of the moment  well, the arts program does work with partners across Canada. They are working also internationally at this point. There's been showcases of NWT arts products at the WAG, in Edmonton, and internationally at the British Museum. So there's quite a lot happening in the recent couple of years to try to promote and increase awareness of the incredible arts that we have here.

That said, the demographic information that we have is that at this time, a majority of the artwork is still being sold here within the Northwest Territories. I mean, I can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this time, to my knowledge, there is no equivalent legislation in the Northwest Territories akin to the Clare's Law system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.