Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to say I have two young pages in the House working with us today. Khalif Joseph and Junaid Mutoola are both residents of Yellowknife South. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the GNWT is having significant challenges maintaining its operations. We are struggling in the health care system obviously with the health authorities running a fairly significant deficit that continues to grow, and struggling in the energy sector right now because of the lack of interconnectivity between our systems and the tremendous costs that continue to build up because of the reliance on diesel and the volatility of fuel. But our fiscal challenges aren't necessarily being driven by operations and maintenance on the highways. Those costs are going up. I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We certainly can produce that. The information that's presented in this format wouldn't necessarily show it the way that I think the Member's looking at. So we'll produce that. And I think just better than that is I propose I'll probably table it in the House since that does seem like information that would be valuable. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Chair, assistant deputy Jenkins does indicate what we are told is that they're getting started this year, so I'll -- we'll go back and see if we can't get something more definitive from the partners that sit at that table, and then we'd be more than happy to follow up or at least give an update if I'm waiting on someone else for information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is simply an amount that allows us to ensure that the existing infrastructure that we have -- technological infrastructure we have remains current. There are a number of assets that come due for support and that are -- whether that's servers, the networks, storage, telecommunications, all of which, I think -- you know, I don't want to presuppose or assume, but technology changes very quickly. It changes quickly on a government scale as well and so this provides us the ability to maintain some currency within that space by using this project budget. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And -- doesn't help. Mr. Chair, I was -- I'm looking at a blank page. Can I turn that to the deputy minister, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on my left I have Bill MacKay, the deputy minister of Finance. And on my right, Dave Heffernan, the government's chief information officer.

No, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, nobody likes a short answer of one that just says no, but unfortunately this instance the short answer is no. The supplementary estimates are -- they come forward as having been gone through the financial management board to bring about issues or things that arise. One example is the collective agreement that was finalized, so this comes forward to bring a couple of collective agreements in. And I have to obviously comply with the collective agreement. Another major item in there was fire suppression funding. We have to pay the bill for our fire suppression funding. Another big...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This certainly is a challenge. It's a challenge across industry. But given the situation we're in, we are trying to bring in more licensed drivers. Some of that backlog, I will say, you know, a bit of a plug for folks who are looking to get their licenses as new drivers, if they want to take a driver's course first, that might reduce the number of repeat customers that we have over at the DMV. But with respect to those that are looking to be professional drivers, that's a different category. They're struggling with the same issue in that we have the same limited number...