Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, this is now definitely probably outside the realm of anything I have the expertise to speak to. I mean, again though, in terms of procurement in the Northwest Territories and achieving the goal of maximizing benefits to residents and to businesses, maximizing keeping dollars circulating in the North, that is a mandate for the whole-of-government. It's a mandate that applies to every one of the Ministers, not just to me, and I am quite confident that the working group that we have set up to do procurement review for the GNWT can, and I'm sure has, but...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the more specific we get the less I'm probably able to make commitments here on the floor. The negotiated contracts policy right now, which is actually a policy of EIA, not Finance, not ITI, not Infrastructure, not procurement shared services, is one that is meant to provide a tool or a mechanism by which we could go directly to an Indigenous government. But, of course, as soon as there's more than one business that comes and requests a contract under a negotiated contract policy, the assumption is it goes to public tender. The result of that being is that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given the multiple times we've now spoken about these meetings, I'm not sure I agree with the characterization of them as being particularly secret in any fashion. And indeed even after the last round of exchanges that the Member and I had on this, the Chamber of Mines themselves put a number of the meeting minutes onto their own website to demonstrate that they too are more than happy to make known the fact that they are working to advance the interests of the industry with the GNWT.

As for the ongoing work there, Mr. Speaker, I certainly took note of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we very fortunately in this government have the LNR departments all working well together. That is Lands, Natural Resources, and Environment all working together. In this particular instance, ENR happens to be the lead in terms of trying to work through a process or governance where we might, if there were to be opportunities to work with large organizations, is to bring funding alternatives on conservation initiatives, then we want to ensure, again, as a collective and as the GNWT and as Northerners, that we'd be doing that within a structure that is for...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to table the following document: Status of Women Council of the Northwest Territories 20202021 Annual Report. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the vaccination policy has always been one of to get a proof of vaccination in and, you know, I hope people aren't doing that, again, because of this; they're doing it because the vaccinations are the best way for them to stay safe and for them to keep their families safe and for as public servants, to keep members of the public safe.

If they're choosing to not provide a proof of vaccination, there's always been the option within the policy that they could then rely on a combination of PPE and testing. There may well be situations that if an employee is...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the numbers are continuing to roll in, and I can say the first version I saw has changed in the 12 hours even since I first saw it a couple of times over. And in a good way. Madam Speaker, I want to say I've you know, there's some outlying areas that I do have some concerns that the numbers are coming in a little low. We are reaching out as a department and with respect to education authorities, I know ECE's reaching out as well, just to make sure that numbers are accurate, first of all, and then to figure out if there's some supports or information...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, prior to COVID, tourism was at around 2 percent GDP. So not a huge contributor to our gross domestic product, certainly. And I don't think I've ever made any statements to the contrary that we are likely to remain dependent on a mineral resource sector as our primary contributor in the private sector to GDP. That is likely to continue into the near future. That said, Madam Speaker, the tourism industry contributes over and above its weight in terms of job contributions. There's a high level of jobs across the territory, particularly outside of...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I certainly agree that this is the tourism sector is has been one of the hardest sectors hit through COVID. It's one of the ones that's going to, sadly, be one of the last to fully rebound. And there's a lot of work that already happens between ITI and Northwest Territories Tourism Association as well as with the COVID Secretariat. I think there was a meeting even just last week, if I'm not mistaken, or within the last couple of weeks, Madam Speaker. So I don't want to create a situation for the tourism association either where they are tasked with...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I sadly don't know when COVID will go away. I wish it was gone; but it's not. And, you know, in the interim, we now have a new variant. So, you know, variants continue to arise. Variants continue to spread. And, you know, that's again part of the reason that we have a vaccination policy in the first place is that this you know, in the last year and a half has demonstrated itself to be the best way to keep people safe, residents safe, public safe, people we serve, particularly in the Northwest Territories where, you know, we saw how quickly in some of...