Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left, Bill MacKay as the deputy minister of finance. And on my right, Mandi Bolstad is the deputy secretary to the financial management board.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the intention around fairness. Mr. Speaker, I -- again, without -- I don't have the details of the procurement here in front of me, as I normally wouldn't. That is a level of operations that Ministers would be inappropriate to get my hands involved in and certainly not here. So, again, I do appreciate the concern for fairness. I certainly can commit that I'll double down on saying to the department that we want to ensure that we are being fair and that we are maintaining and adhering to all of the procurement principles that we have. But beyond that, Mr...

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to talk about how the Government of the Northwest Territories is making improvements when it comes to our technology systems and online services. Our main goal is simple: We want to make government services easier to access and safer to use. We want people to be able to securely access services like applying for a permit, or accessing a marriage, birth or death certificate, no matter where they live in the Northwest Territories.

Residents can now access a wide array of services digitally, from applying for vital statistics documents or renewing driver's...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, Mr. Chair, I realize my answer wasn't very clear. So originally, this was a three -- projected to be a three-year project. It is now projected to be a four-year project first, on the firsthand. And secondly, there was an additional amount that was added to the project, not in this supp. But with the addition of the extra year on the project, the original timing of some of when things were being spent has changed. And so originally, the total projected -- the total projected spending now for 2024-2025 is just shy of $200,000 which leaves a balance available of --...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there certainly is some ability to do that. You can have a contractor or a subcontractor declared to be -- I'm not -- the word's escaping me, Mr. Chair. But to have them noted so that future procurement does look at them as being -- yeah, and would have that noted on file as being a known contractor with whom there have been problems. That's a fairly significant consideration, fairly significant marking to have (audio) so it would have to be fairly certain. I'd certainly be happy to take it away and see whether there is something more that can be done. I hear...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on my left I have the deputy minister of finance Bill MacKay. And on my right, Mandi Bolstad is the deputy secretary to the financial management board.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am here to present the Tabled Document 340-20(1), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. This document proposes a total increase of $178.555 million in capital expenditures, comprised of the following items:

$92.94 million for infrastructure expenditures funding for projects that were not completed in 2024-2025. This amount is fully offset by unspent appropriations in 2024-2025;

$41.6 million for contributions to Housing NWT for infrastructure investment in public housing;

$20.9 million for increased costs associated with the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, again, just so that we're clear as a get-go, a project can request a carryover only under specified circumstances, and that is specifically if either there is already substantial work underway or if a contractual obligation exists. So on -- you know, there's different reasons why different projects can see particular carryovers and, you know, they can range from anything from a contract being signed, you know, right at the line and such that they then end up, you know, requiring a carryover because they didn't quite meet the cutoff for having, you know, the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There certainly have been changes over time, Mr. Chair, so there are MACA contributions in 2019, 2020, and 2021 were higher than what they continued to be thereafter. I'm not in a position here to say why in the last sort of -- why that change was made some now five years ago. Certainly would be happy to look into that further if I -- if it's helpful. But, really, Mr. Chair, the bigger -- the biggest single loss is coming as a result of the changes in the kind of funds from the lottery revolving fund that's just simply, as I said earlier, not seeing the kinds of revenues...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the project is in the implementation phase which is hopefully a positive word. The plant has been substantially completed already. It is expected to be fully commissioned in this current summer. There was some modification required for some of the ice harvesting related systems and that is where the carryover, I believe, originates, and that system had to be modified and then reconstructed, so that is where the carryover came with this. The plant is otherwise, as I said, operational, and I -- it would be hopeful would be fully implemented and therefore not see...