Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document, "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 196-19(2): Economic Cost and Support for Business." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is a steering committee that has been formed, as well, which has led to the ISSS being developed. It is co-chaired by the chief information officer, whose position resides within Finance, as well as executive, the EIA department deputy secretary. While I appreciate that there are a variety of possible views on what the correct process or best process might be, what I would commit to is to bringing forward some reports through to the Member and, if interested, then to a relevant committee about what process is underway, what process has been chosen, and why, and certainly, to take back...

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. A few comments. I meant what I said earlier, some time ago now, in my first budget speech. A budget is a collective effort and a collaborative approach will be the best way to build a financial plan for this fiscal year and beyond. Through this budget session, we have worked with Regular Members to evaluate our priorities with the result that we are committing $1.9 million in additional investments to round out the 2020-2021 Budget. These additional investments include the following:

$600,000 to support the revitalization of Indigenous languages. We will contribute $150...

I would love to give another really quick answer. Let me go so far as to say "yes, probably." However, what I'm concerned about is: the example being given is the budget, which is certainly numerical, very quantitative, and in that regard, probably much easier to simply turn around into excel spreadsheets. In speaking about whenever the government puts out information, that opens up a door that I'm not prepared to make that commitment to. In some regard, yes, there should be a policy to make government information more accessible, easier. When it's quantified like a budget, that's not a...

That's a slightly more difficult question to answer. I took note yesterday when the Member gave a very impassioned speech about the importance of being quick, sometimes, with what government does. Certainly, in our COVID-19 response this government has been nimble and quick and responsive, in my view. Taking action with government data that includes personal information, private information, health information, information with all sorts of privacy concerns, privilege concerns, labour relations concerns, that is not something that we're going to be able to rush through quickly. The information...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can reassure the Member I think in this case that, while I don't necessarily know all the reasons why the past iteration of the committee might have been hesitant or in terms of what they're funding, there are two things that are happening that I think are positive. The biggest one is that the committee members have now met in person. They met in person; November 25, 2019, was the first time they met in person in, I'm told, quite a long time. I had the opportunity to meet with them. They sat down. They were really brainstorming around where they want the committee to go...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I suspect many of the other creditors might still be fully compiling some of the data, we are in no different of a position than many others in that regard. I can say that in 2019-2020 the GNWT did collect $14.6 million in terms of taxes. Obviously, I'm not sure if that's necessarily the same. With COVID-19 some of the reporting dates have been deferred and delayed so that data is going to still have to continue to come in. We do, again, have the royalties that do come into us. Again, that reporting date was delayed. In addition to which, under regulation, I'm unable...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We certainly can provide the metrics in terms of the reduction in wait times. There have been reductions. I'm looking back to 2017-2018, and it's been by 22 percent the one year and then to 29 percent after that. The wait times there are only one metric. That is influenced by the fact that there are now two part-time rental officers hearing that. That changes the wait times, but it doesn't necessarily change some of the other metrics of the service, wait times to a decision. There are other ways of measuring the effectiveness of this public service, and I want to be...

There are three priority needs that are related to broadband and telecoms that have already been identified from the GNWT. The 50 and 10 megabytes per second, that's the speed which has been spoken recently in the House; the importance of resiliency and redundancy in our networks which hasn't come up here but has certainly come up in the past in the House; but the third one is cell coverage. I certainly want the Member to know that I know that this is a priority. It's already a priority within my department. As far as providing that as a service that we have to increase the ability to have...