Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, the human resources and the representation of the population of the North within the public service has been something I've taken very seriously in this role and that the department takes seriously. The Affirmative Action Policy, as it is now, was from 1989. It is woefully out of date. It is not in keeping with best practices. It arguably may not be in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And it's not showing achievement. We know we're sitting at 30 percent representation of Indigenous people in a territory with 50 percent representation. So we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had two Indigenous governments reach out directly to my office to confirm that they wanted an opportunity to have a direct engagement on this. And I know that officials have also spoken with officials from the Department of Finance with respect to the engagements. And, Mr. Speaker, beyond that, though, with respect to what the reaction of individual members, groups, governments might be, that is not mine to presume or assume. What we have attempted to do, Mr. Speaker, is to design having both an Indigenous Employment Policy that is specific and to the...

Mr. Speaker, last month I attended the annual Association for Mineral Exploration Roundup conference in Vancouver with fellow Cabinet Members and government officials. We were there to advance this Legislative Assembly’s priorities to increase resource exploration and development in our territory; adopt a benefit retention approach to economic development; make strategic infrastructure investments; and, to identify, prioritize, and strengthen key actions to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Achieving meaningful progress on these multiple and complex...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Nahendeh, that Bill 62, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, No. 2, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, carbon tax is coming. Mr. Speaker, the large emitters right now businesses don't have a special program under the federal system either. The federal government will decide where they want to put the money, how they want to put the money. Right now where we've seen them put their money is in electric vehicles, in heat pumps, which don't work in the Northwest Territories. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure that that's necessarily the direction that we all want to go with. As I've said before, we have figured out what the fuel usages have been in the business sector and the private...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, even if we don't accept the proposal that we're putting forward, the tax rates will not change. The tax rates that are being put in place on April 1st from the federal government for carbon tax are coming. What we're trying to do, and what we've done is, particularly after discussions with Members, we're proposing to have a heating fuel offset that will be based on the average household heating usage in the high use zones, middle use zone, and the smaller use zone, which from our calculations, will cover the costs for residents of the increases to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member must be reading my social media. I had the opportunity to attend an FPT recently where I think my lead word was "interoperability." It is something that, quite frankly, doesn't sound very exciting, not the sort of thing that gets somebody's political blood boiling, but is quite critical to the functioning of the services from the IT perspective and one that we need to do a better job of, Mr. Speaker. There's really no way around that. So I'm pleased to have some attention here. It's been brought to my attention by my officials that lack of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Madam Chair, I'm happy to try to get that data. And, again, just having briefly a conversation here with the director of fiscal policies, that that may be difficult to determine just what the amount of lost revenues are, are sort of anecdotal. The expectation is that it's not likely a significant value nonetheless and again, I mean, if it's across every type of tax credit, yes, we would need to just go back and look at exactly what kinds of credits we're talking about and what kind of lost revenue we're talking about. But, again, we'll go and have a look and we'll...

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, there's no lost revenues on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, on my right I have Kelly Bluck, who is director of fiscal policy within the Department of Finance, and on my left I have Christina Duffy, who is legislative director.