Caroline Wawzonek

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will certainly confirm that, whether that's with the other hat that I wear or with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. There is an outstanding work happening in Alberta that has been the source of some delay, and we are all keen to see that there is no further delay. As I mentioned earlier, these need to be on the winter road, which does come with certain project timelines that, again, I'm quite keen to see are not lost. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this certainly did experience some rather significant, and in many cases, fairly unusual overruns. I mean, this was a circumstance where the funding was approved at a time prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. And this is obviously not the only project to have experienced delays as a result of that, but certainly is one. But then those delays related to supply chain, related to materials, related to labour shortages, were magnified when there was another -- there was a third party accident in terms of transporting one of the key items and then the vendor failed to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise the House that the honourable Member for Hay River North, Premier, will be absent from the House for today and tomorrow to attend the Western Premiers' Conference in Whitehorse, Yukon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is an additional contract item. It does note further down below with respect to the major project in Colville Lake for their school, they are still in a design stage on that project, Mr. Chair, and the community did have an engagement just last spring to sort of rebegin the process of concerning where they're at in this -- what is becoming a fairly long project. I know further that the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment is reaching out to the community, to the chief, to see that there is sort of a renewed timeline on this. That engagement was only just in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on my left is Bill MacKay, the deputy minister for the Department of Finance. On my right, Terence Courtoreille, deputy secretary to the financial management board.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so, again, this is a situation where there's a number of breakdowns of things. Site preparation is really about half, if not more than half, of the cost. And so the short answer should be yes, because these ones are coming up on the winter road, and so we are still anticipating that that will be ready to roll for 2025. And site preparation, as I note, that is a significant portion of the rest of that cost, so probably over $2 million or $2.4 million roughly. Obviously, we'll wait and see what the financial bill is on that. I don't know that I have a final in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm happy to present Tabled Document 111-20(1), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 1, 2024-2025. This document proposes a total increase of $142.1 million, comprised of the following items:

$146.9 million for infrastructure expenditures funding for projects that were not completed in 2023-2024. This amount is fully offset by unspent appropriations in 2023-2024;

$2.3 million for the relocation of modular classrooms from Yellowknife to Tuktoyaktuk;

$2.8 million for increased costs associated with the acquisition of portables for Colville Lake...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, these documents are largely approaches and visions, and I am apprehensive to put timelines around them because they are not going to be solely GNWT-driven documents. They're going to be documents that really bring together the voices of Northerners right across our territory. We have heard a lot of really good things across the territory, a lot of momentum in this field lately, especially in regards to Indigenomics and so this is a space for us to come together through Council of Leaders. This is a space for us to come together with voices, for...

Mr. Chair, sadly, the answer to that is no. This is one particular item that was fairly near and dear to my heart and that I was watching very closely so that these portables would be the first ones on the barge that was due to head north. Obviously with no barges heading north, there are no portables heading north. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I happen to know the answer to this because when the Minister beside me agreed to go on the tour, she handed off an obligation to me on that particular week. So for her to go there, I'm going somewhere else. But let's -- I commit to finding a date as soon as possible hopefully in the next six weeks or eight weeks where I can also head on my own up to the region. Thank you.