Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, so, Mr. Chair, I heard subsidies directed to the consumer, so that's the numbers I was sort of running through. There's also, of course, supports that the government provides to keep the cost of energy infrastructure reduced. So, for example, the Inuvik wind project, wind and battery project, and the Taltson upgrade project collectively were also -- came in at around $80 million and by subsidizing -- so, yes, we're subsidizing in that case the infrastructure by doing so, otherwise that would then have to be paid by the ratepayers according to the public utilities...

Mr. Speaker, only one side of this House is talking about cuts. The government is not talking about widespread rampant cuts. What we have talked about is having a budget that is providing stability. Beyond -- I won't get into the details of it because that's one of the rules of the House the public may not be familiar with, that we don't talk about things that are still going through the processes of the committee that happen on the floor later today. But, Mr. Speaker, Restoring Balance is about just that. It's about restoring balance. It's not about cutting things when we don't need to or...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that's not my understanding. So we did file -- or the Northwest Territories Power Corporation did file its rate application in time for October 30th, and by that point were able to sort of notify or say that there would be a subsidy included. A formal letter then gets issued ultimately from the Department of Finance, from my office, to confirm that the subsidy has been approved. So they're aware that it has been proposed and hopefully coming and not my understanding that it's held up. There's quite a lot that's involved. It's, you know, many hundreds of pages of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is, indeed, relating to the school funding framework requirements and -- so, yes, there's an increase in this case -- yes, I'm definitely not going to be the right Minister to necessarily get into explaining exactly how that calculation gets made. But there is -- the good news is that yes, indeed, it does tend to be impacted by determination of attendance or a determinance of the number of students that are attending, and it gets adjusted in the year because our fiscal year and their school year don't necessarily quite align. But in this case, we did -- yes -- sorry...

(audio) Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, if -- as I think one of the Members earlier was asking, the public utilities board does need to know that there's been a confirmed approval to provide some form of subsidy to what otherwise wouldn't be costs that would be borne by ratepayers so that it can be considered as part of their process. If it doesn't get approved, it won't be considered as part of that process is my understanding. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate that question. So first just -- I know there's been sort of chatter, if you will, around the idea of a freeze. So we did put out that there would be some -- we wanted departments to engage in fiscal restraint which is not the same necessarily as a freeze and that was -- is likely to probably arise in the discussions over the course of today. But the idea is as we come to the idea of the fiscal year, we are saying -- you know, departments do have budgets. If they are under a certain amount then they can -- you know, for example, if there's an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And no, unfortunately, there's not. Again, we are the regulating body that ensures about the provision of insurance and how -- you know, how the behaviour of the insurance companies or the brokers might be but not a control over their commercial market and what the commercial market might be doing to prices. That said, Mr. Speaker, we do set the rate for the cost of having your insurance. I mean, there's a tax that's levied on insurance companies. We have kept that rate low. We have a 1 percent only for fire insurance, and we've kept ours at 3 percent on the main...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I certainly do have that -- it's not necessarily in the supplementary estimate documents or background materials; I certainly can get that to Members. I'm just not finding -- I mean, that's what I'm digging back now to before the winter break. So I don't have that coming up quickly. Yes, I'll have to get back to the Member with the breakdown of how we landed on that number. Thank you.

Back again, Mr. Chair, we have on my left deputy minister of finance Bill MacKay, and on my right Mandi Bolstad, the deputy secretary to the financial management board.