Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Fiscal Responsibility Policy isn't where the cap on the capital projects came in. That is an approach towards capital planning that we had imposed to put a cap on department spending of $260 million. That was introduced in 20232024, but it didn't exist in prior years, and it certainly didn't exist under the past Assembly, which is where a lot of projects wind up moving forward. So to the extent that if we hadn't put that cap in 20232024 and the 20232024 budget had started out much higher as it had been over the two, three, and many years before that, we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Madam Chair, $284,000. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I certainly do have a list of projects, and I'm only hesitant in that it's because this is - these are communitydriven projects, I want to confirm there's no reason that I'm holding it and can't share it. But if there's not, then I'm certainly happy to share that at the very least with committee. Thank you.

Madam Chair, again, it's a carryover amount. So it's an amount that is under this contract for this work and, you know, this is our - it's our asset right now. If there is work that needs to get done on it, we would need to ensure that it needs to. But that is the case, this is part of the contracting process. The money is still there. It hasn't been released. And it won't be released until we're sure that there are no deficiencies. If there's no deficiencies, the money does move out. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, any changes to the capital plan from last year haven't been approved so there's nothing new available. Obviously, as new items are approved for - I mean, obviously if the supplementary appropriations get approved, then those changes can be made and they'd be - they could be reflected, but at this point it's difficult to make something public that's not yet actually a fact. Obviously as we go forward, every time there's a new capital plan that certainly has to be updated for that, you know, going forward this August when we have a new capital plan, the...

Madam Chair, thank you. I don't know that with certainty, so I don't want to surmise here. I just I'm showing a contract value. Now, whether there'd be some additional annual fee, I would anticipate so, but I don't have that here. So I will confirm, and we'll get back to committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So we're hoping on there being just over a million dollars this year, and then increasing next year to over a $1.5 or $1.6, again depending on and subject to the amount of production that is available. Those revenues then offset the costs of running the plant. Certainly if production is higher, then there is more revenue that offsets further. And really can be hopefully a snowball approach, Madam Chair. There's more production, more fish for sale, more revenues, more fishers interested, the cost will the price of fish will go up as we're able to provide that supply to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this is an amount that's more in line with what historical amounts for a supplementary reserve would have been, although I think even then still perhaps a bit enhanced. The $65 million was a number that we added or increased supplementary reserve to during COVID when it was apparent that, and very obvious, all governments were facing significant and unexpected needs that were arising over the course of that period of time. Obviously with the end of COVID, it was hoped that we would not continue to require that level of increase to the supplementary reserve...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we are not expecting this to be an ongoing thing. This is really part of the transition now that there is well, hopefully soon to be the operational fish plant in Hay River, and over the next three years it will be transitioning to be a locally operated hopefully locally operated fish plant. But for now, we need to get it open and running. So unfortunately with the production in fish having gone down over the last five and so years, as a result of which there's a bit of a gap particularly in this first year in terms of what we're expecting in revenues...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, we have no, not this one, Madam Chair. Just one moment, or actually perhaps I will see if deputy minister or Mr. Courtoreille has it up in front of them.