Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to look back at the manufacturing strategy and also with looking at that in the context of the procurement panel's review. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is being recommended in the panel, by the procurement panel was, of course, to have a more integrated and consolidated policy to which the northern manufacturing policy would also then be part of. So to the extent that we are right now at a critical point in that process, having done obviously the public review process, now also an Indigenous government engagement and consultation...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm glad to have an opportunity to speak about this. Certainly, we're going into the fall session and getting ready on capital planning.

During the public review process, there was some Indigenous governments who had chose to not partake in that process and instead we've been engaging more directly with them in terms of the Modern Treaty SelfGovernment tables, Council of Leaders tables, in order to ensure that all Indigenous governments here within the Northwest Territories are properly involved in this process. So that process is now complete. There was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so if anyone's wondering perhaps why as Minister of Finance I'm speaking to this is the Member and I have had the opportunity to begin these discussions back at the time of the last budgeting cycle and in discussing where and how funding decisions are made. I've since had an opportunity, and continue to have the opportunity, to meet with the Minister responsible for Housing NWT. It's her staff directly who had met with the members from the Salt River First Nation, the chief, the vicepresident I understand, or CEO. I understand that happened April 12th or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've had the opportunity also to speak with my colleague, the Minister responsible for Housing and for Homelessness.

Mr. Speaker, this is a mandate item of the Government of the Northwest Territories. I would venture to say that every person in this House considers it a priority and considers it a priority for every resident anywhere in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to speak a bit about the opportunity I had to be on the committee. I was very grateful to be on the committee. It was an honour to be on with this committee dealing with this topic. It was an interesting I mean, I'm new to the Assembly, this is my first time here, but it was clear even so that this was something being done very differently to have both Members of Cabinet and other and MLAs all on one committee working together figuring out the process by which we would do that. So it wasn't just about what, you know, Cabinet would do, or what Ministers...

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, contract reporting is already being improved. The dashboard that I mentioned just a couple of responses ago has just gone live this month so I can appreciate that stakeholders, businesses, may not necessarily be familiar with it yet. Certainly, you know, I encourage them to go and look at that as a resource. It's an opportunity to get more information out and to get it out in one place. But, Mr. Speaker, the real core of what I'm hearing in the last question around frustration, you know, I think everyone understands, and can probably share some of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, there have been some incremental changes, some interim changes already in place. One in particular I want to highlight the Vendor Performance Management Program. There's a few phases to this.

Essentially when we are going to be changing procurement, if we're not monitoring how vendors are doing and how those contracts are unfolding, it's going to be very difficult to ensure that we're either incentivizing or dealing with any lack or failure to deal with what was being said in the contracts. So we've ruled this out first phase last June for construction...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is a fairly generous leave package that has a number of different ways by which employees are able to take leave, both paid leave/unpaid leave, and the focus and the intent is that individuals have an opportunity to look at what their particular needs and circumstances are and can then apply to their supervisor for applicable leave. There's not a specific section within that particular for fertility benefits or fertility treatments. But, again, you know, the idea here that I'm trying to get at with that is that although we don't have that specifically...

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree. I'm happy to say that vendor performance management has been something that the auditor, or the Office of the Comptroller General has been working on since early days of this Assembly and, indeed, it's one of the areas where there's already been some progress. Construction contracts over $250,000 are already being monitored to ensure their compliance. But as this procurement review goes forward, I anticipate that that system and that process for monitoring will only improve. Obviously once we know exactly what we are going to be monitoring at the final...