Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just by way of preface, there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of any kind of design, the final design, which could look a variety of different ways. But in short, the main access, or the main interest area, indeed, is to create a fish collection station so that fishers can offload from the lake and have it shipped down to the, but then, hopefully, constructed plant in Hay River. And as such, this will be one of the associated sites that fishers around the lake can be attending. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It's confirmed to me that the 75,000 is expected to be in fact ongoing.

Madam Chair, there are department staff watching these proceedings, and I think the comments will be well taken. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My understanding of the system is that it's the disaster assistance committee that has the ability to make the final decisions on that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think as I said at the beginning, this is an industry that contributes one third of the GDP of the Northwest Territories, over 1300 direct jobs in 2019, not to mention indirect jobs, over $813 million is spent in procurement. That's supporting all the other industries. If the Department of ITI wasn't having regular meetings with the industry representation, I would be facing very difficult questions in the House to explain why we aren't. There are regular working group meetings with the fisheries sector right now. I have regular meetings with Northwest...

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do appreciate the commitments that were made, I want to echo that, you know, that really was a consensus government approach was a very positive one for the people of the Northwest Territories. So I think the appreciation really does flow in both directions on all of those commitments.

Madam Chair, with respect to the travel reductions, this was not a simple process and it was not a simple calculation. It was done in a way where the departments came forward, did an analysis of all of their travel spending in order to understand what of the various travel budgets is...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd be happy to make that commitment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, no one department has a position or an opinion about land withdrawals. There is a position of the Government of the Northwest Territories on land withdrawals, and that alone is the position, not one offs or, you know, statements made out of context, perhaps in these notes. Although on that note, Mr. Speaker, I received this only yesterday. I have also gone through it. I've gone through the unredacted version.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear to me and it shouldn't be any surprise industry, indeed municipalities, have long said that the lack of certainty around land...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I know it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the vast bulk of the airline funding is coming from the federal government and I'm not sure they are prepared to fund us to take an equity stake in our local airline. And, again, the conversation hasn't been had, Madam Chair, to be quite clear.

As far as adding route, the funding that is being made available is to support the existing and really the essential services routes in terms of moving supplies and moving people within the territory and south. Right now, this is our only route to the south so all...