Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to note that the staff who will be administering the SEED program are both orderly and smart in the way that they will be administering that program, and we appreciate the work they do every day. Right now, the budget for SEED is $3.8 million, and it has been that way for a great many years. Fortunately, as part of the COVID response, we were able to increase this budget up to $4 million through internal reallocations, and as of right now, we are actually projecting that that will hit $4.3 million in terms of the total applications being sought. Every effort...

It's my understanding that that is the intention. I don't have the numbers in front of me. I will make sure and get that confirmation and share it with the Member.

I did want to acknowledge that the Member had expressed the fact and outlined the fact that the program has been adapted to COVID-19 and that that adaptation happened quickly on the part of ITI. I would note that, for the purposes of COVID-19 right now, the SEED program has shifted rather substantially and that, for this year, they have waived the market disruption clause and indeed re-shifted the focus of a lot of the SEED funding so that small and medium-sized businesses can apply under a fairly different set of policies, given the fact that the markets themselves are quite disrupted. Thank...

Increasing the funding on a permanent basis is something that has to go through a business-planning process and an analysis to determine if, in fact, that is the best way to spend public dollars. Certainly, there is a suite of programs right now that support entrepreneurs in small and medium-sized businesses, including not only the SEED program but programs spread across ITI, as well as BIP. I will say that part of what I want to ensure we do is make sure that we are adequately funding those programs in a way that they become complementary and that they fill gaps one from the next, but that...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table to following two documents: "Northern Employees Benefit Services (NEBS) Pension Plan Annual Report for the Year Ended December 31, 2019 and including updated information to June 2020" and "NWT Carbon Tax Report 2019-2020." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I am very pleased to say that we're going to be working together with the Tlicho Government to bring a fibre line into the community of Whati, and pleased that, again, at this point, with the CRTC approvals that are in place, Gameti and Wekweeti will be seeing a dramatic improvement to their access, as well. We are constantly working with federal counterparts to have access and opportunity to get involved with the tremendous amount of funding that is coming forward in the next few years for broadband, but even that funding from the federal government, at this point, although we're...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me speak to the matter in Whati first. I'm very happy to be able to say that, with the recent signing of the infrastructure cooperation agreement between the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Tlicho Government, part of that agreement was, in fact, that the GNWT is now supporting the option for a fibre optic line to Whati. This is going to be a project that would be led by the Tlicho government, but the GNWT is going to partner and provide support as well as some financial supports in terms of preparing their project. That is a very exciting opportunity...

I think that is a very good idea, but I am not at the point yet where I can say for sure whether or not that will be the outcome of the procurement review that is under way, or about to be under way, I suppose. Again, I think I have already committed in the House that the idea of developing and Indigenous procurement strategy is something that I will commit to. Whether that includes a specific target or not, again, that is but one of many good ideas that I think are coming from the dialogues that we're having in this session on this topic.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the interests of having only 59 minutes, I'll try to be a bit brief. It's a huge question. A few highlights, really, and I want to acknowledge at the outset that there is always more that can be done. This is a territory that is 50 percent Indigenous, and many of the communities are 100 percent Indigenous. I first want to acknowledge that there is always more that can be done.

A couple of things: there are regional economic development plans that fall under the responsibility of ITI, and if we can be successful in delivering those in partnership with the Indigenous...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Returning again is deputy minister of Finance, Sandy Kalgutkar.