Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, I mean, as I said, certainly that's the point of bringing the matter here is for us all as an Assembly to have an opportunity to discuss how to spend the public dollars we are responsible for as a collective. And certainly, you know, some budgets could be adjusted, and maybe there is, you know, money made I know there's going to be probably requests to increase some areas. I would just sort of keep in mind, or urge people to keep in mind, that if we are increasing the overall plan, then we are again adding dollars into the plan that we know we will not...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, this is the proposed capital budget. So that's it's before the House now for discussion, and, you know, that's exactly the point here. It's not approved before it's approved by this House. So, you know, that's precisely the discussions we are to be having over the next short while. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, this isn't just, to be clear, a function of the circumstances of the labour market shortages that all of Canada and the world are experiencing today. This is reflective of, you know, the last ten years that we saw that, you know, the average spend in the last ten years year over year is around $250 million per year. So it's not new that we simply don't have the capacity in the North alone to be getting out to have much more than that spent in any particular given year. So it's not entirely a function of current labour market shortages. It is a function...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Madam Chair, I'm happy to do that. We did do budget dialogues again this spring at which point we had an update for it at the spring period. But certainly a lot of the work to assist communities that were affected by the flood was taking place over the spring and summer. So those final numbers were coming in, and I am happy to get that information out again.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am happy to present the GNWT’s 20232024 Capital Estimates.

These capital estimates total $328 million to support and continue infrastructure investment in our communities. Major highlights of the plan include:

$95.1 million for highways, winter roads, bridges and culverts. This includes funding of $13.4 million for the Frank Channel Bridge, $12 million for the Prohibition Creek Access Road, $19.8 million for the advancement of the environmental and planning work for the Mackenzie Valley and Slave Geologic Province AllSeason roads;

$45 million for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure that the lessons learned here are necessarily the ones that the Member's expecting insofar as in this case, Mactung actually has turned out to be a fairly strategic and important critical minerals and metals project; it has been sold; it's been sold with the liabilities transferring to the owner. And hopefully, we'll actually see the development of a critical minerals and metals project. So in that sense, it actually has all gone quite well, which isn't to say that the government generally wants to go out and be the buyer of a mine. But in this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, both the letter of intent as well as the asset purchase agreement would be binding on future owners should Fireweed Metals not be the owners of the property. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that the MLA is referencing discussions that were had between myself and colleagues on the other side when we were preparing the main estimates and passing the main estimates. And I certainly can, you know, provide I believe this information has been provided, but I'm happy to go through it again.

There were increases, at the conclusions of those discussions, made to various program budgets within Housing NWT. It was, I believe, $6.6 million that was committed in addition, as part of the main estimates’ discussions, to fund projects that are specifically...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, one of the sources of, you know, concern that's been raised has actually been colleagues in the federal government who have said, you know, why aren't you spending more? What are you spending? You know, and they want to have accountability for the dollars that they are committing to the Northwest Territories. So if there are projects that are delayed or stalled, again for a variety of reasons, but it may well but for whatever reason it may be that attaches to any particular project, you know, they would rather know that when we have a properly sized budget...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so, you know, there were updates that were provided back in, I believe August, when we were preparing for this session. As I said, numbers related to the information that was received through the spring and summer as flood remediation work was ongoing certainly were being updated through the course of time. All of the information does go into the main estimates documents. I can see if we can put some sort of package together, you know, more urgently than that, you know, without having anyone from the department here in front of me and even if they were...