Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've had the opportunity to tour the facility here and meet with the producers, and I've heard from them that they certainly would, sounds like, prefer to see a discount on the retail end price as opposed to on the markup price. Mr. Speaker, we've certainly had that conversation many times. No doubt it would -- I can't say whether it would make a difference for them. You know, at this point I'd need to know what their numbers are. I can commit to reviewing the policy again. We've done that in the past. We've done that in response to this industry, prepared...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are a great many struggles across this Northwest Territories right now, whether it's the public service that's struggling, whether it's NGOs delivering services that are struggling, whether it's residents who are struggling, residents in the Sahtu right now are struggling. So it is difficult to have a line item or an announceable in a budget that addresses every single one of the struggles that we are having in the territory right now coming off of four years of struggle. There's a lot of struggle. No, there is not a line item that says, this NGO...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, going to bat to ensure that multi-year funding agreements are available is certainly something that I've already fought for and that is now quite widely available, and we'll certainly be dulling that down, that message, as I know my deputy minister already has with his colleagues at my request, that multi-year funding agreements are available. They've been available for the government for a long time. They come with the caveat that we only approve budgets here once a year. That applies to every department and everything we do, including the contribution...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am happy to do this although I'm conscious that we are trying to be a bit more mindful of our time. The energy strategy is up for a renewal, and last summer some significant progress was made in terms of having, for example, a large forum of engagement and significant other opportunities for engagement over the summer of last year obviously with some challenges. There's work being done right now to draft up what that might look like. I know Members of the Assembly have had a significant amount of interest in this particular area. I think we are expecting...

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, Madam Chair, it's not. This is very much directly related to the fact that there's been significant challenges. I mean, low water being probably top of mind on this one. It's not a capital it's not related to capital. It's not related to the operations, really, of the organization. It was either that there's and I don't have the numbers top of mind. But there was a significant amount of diesel that was burned over this last while because of low water and with high fuel costs, we had a pretty unfortunate combination of needing more diesel and high cost of diesel...

Mr. Speaker, I recently had the opportunity to address the Northwest Territories Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists at their annual professional development symposium. The theme for this year's symposium was Building a Resilient North, which underscores a collective commitment to overcoming challenges and fostering innovative solutions for a sustainable future for residents. Today, I want to highlight the pivotal role that strategic infrastructure plays in securing the future prosperity of the Northwest Territories.

The strength of our economy and our future prosperity...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we are right now spending what we're I mean, in terms of talking about energy savings and energy rebates, the Government of the Northwest Territories spends almost $8 million a year in terms of supporting territorial support, power supports. There's several million dollars a year that goes to seniors' home heating subsidies. There's $30 million a year that we've put to keep power rates low just recently, notwithstanding others. So I mean, I don't disagree that getting folks to a position where they're not as reliant on diesel is certainly one that, I think...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, one of the significant areas or significant reasons for change is simply the fact of the growth in the public service. So as there are more public servants who require various items or technological items, that requires almost inevitably more work from the TSC on those items. So that is a significant reason for the growth.

Secondary to that, there has been some growth in terms of the licensing fees that are also spread across these dollars and, particularly, in regards to cyber security and the services that we rely on to maintain cyber security. That has...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there have been some challenges in terms of the funding in this program in terms of, for example, whether or not the programs that have been funded or the projects that have been funded are the right scope in size or whether they're perhaps not delivering as we all would hope them to. So at the very least, this is likely a situation where there would need to be a review of the program done and some supports put in to ensure the money would be spent properly. Now, as to whether it goes back in or not, that will be a question, I think, for the finance...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I don't have operational level of detail regarding the housing corporation's work in front of me. Thank you.