Caroline Wawzonek

(audio) anywhere else, Mr. Speaker. So while we've gone down from tripling to doubling, Mr. Speaker, all the initiatives come through together. So the first step, of course, is the development of the mandate, which as done by Cabinet, but certainly involves review and input from Members, and then with that we'll go through the process of the budget establishment, and that includes once we've got that mandate we can look at initiatives. Initiatives are meant to actually then support the mandate. Obviously one of our four key items is economic growth, and the mineral resource industry continues...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the mineral exploration tax credit is a flowthrough tax credit tool that's used, and it's not one that would be effective here. We don't have the sort of financial institutions and large-scale investors that would make it useful as a tax tool from the Northwest Territories. We really are looking at the federal government where for them, in our view, there would be no revenue losses. It would be an opportunity to really just create this opportunity for more investment in the North and for an incentive to invest in the North.

To look more generally at what can...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is money that is coming in under the requirement or to fulfill the requirements under the AlbertaNorthwest Territories Bilateral Water Management Agreement. It's a cost shared agreement between the two, and it's meant to provide water management support for the Mackenzie River Basin. That's an agreement that was signed back in 2015. It commits both governments to cooperate in terms of the management of water resources, facilitate the monitoring of the water. Obviously, it moves across the border fluidly, and reporting of upstream effects that may occur, if there...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that's correct.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is the appropriation of the federal dollars. So any time the federal government signs an agreement or provides funding to the Government of the Northwest Territories, we still have to come forward even if we are, you know, open to signing the agreement, we still have to come forward to the Legislative Assembly to actually appropriate that money so that it can then go to the department. I mean, it goes back to the earlier conversation about shortterm debt. Until the money gets appropriated in, you know, we have to come here formally and make an adjustment to the main...

Yes, I believe that's correct. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think that's an excellent question for this House. It certainly traditionally hasn't been something that's been widely considered or widely discussed in the Northwest Territories. But the reality is we have over 20 different energy grids scattered across the territories. We're not linked into the North American energy infrastructure. And it may well be that the future of nuclear, as it's proving to develop and if it's proving to be safe, could well be a direction that the Northwest Territories wishes to go, that communities want to go. And so that certainly is a conversation...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it's not an increase per se to the benefit itself. Just to be clear. It's an increase to the amount that's required to cover the medical travel benefits. So medical travel assistance, it's a benefit that a number of corporations and companies and businesses provide to employees. It's one that the Government of the Northwest Territories provides to our employees, to public servants. It is part of the collective agreement with the Union of Northern Workers as well as with NWTTA and is provided as well for excluded employees, senior managers. As such, when there...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm inclined to get back to the Members. I'm looking at the material I have in front of me and this is not I don't obviously have the programming area specifics, and I don't want to misstate what exactly is being increased so I don't want to also conflate the fact that bound up in here is the fact that there's an end coming change on March 1st. So I'd like to take that one back and just make sure I can get a better explanation than what I have done so far of exactly what this is for. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the I believe the new positions that we are going to have coming in sorry, let me just take actually, let hand it to Mr. Courtoreille, please.