Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 50, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 20212022 be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with that regard, again, we're looking at multiple departments all working together. ENR does have the lead in terms of developing right now and actively right now developing remediation economy document and strategy so that we best understand where the opportunities lie. ITI and ECE work together in terms of understanding what training opportunities exist and what our labour market needs are going to be over the next few years, including in the remediation sphere. So both of those things are underway. Again, all three departments are actively involved in...

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Madam Premier. Mr. Speaker, we're always looking for opportunities. We are happy to work with any proponent, whether that's as a pathfinder of our own processes and our own regulatory processes, whether it's as a pathfinder of understanding what the federal processes might be. Mr. Speaker, obviously, for I shouldn't say obviously, but for any larger scale programs they are typically on the mineral resources side, they would involve often IBAs, SEAs, social economic agreements, impact benefit agreements, and so certainly to the extent that they're able to...

In favour

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the government renewal initiative was never intended to be an expressed budget cutting initiative or government jobs cutting initiative. It has always been an effort to say, you know, that we look at it having an over $2 billion budget and yet continue to see needs, continue to see challenges in various you know, in various programs or services, and so what we wanted to do was to take a step back and say, look, what are we doing with $2 billion that can better align with needs, priorities, values. Are there programs that we know are successful that could...

In favour.

Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to just confirm that I'm being heard? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So I am quite conscious of the fact that there's been a reduction in the GDP over the last couple of years. We've obviously been through the pandemic and certainly in the last two years, that has been the predominant reason for that. Nevertheless, I think everyone's heard me say that we were in challenging times long before the pandemic and that we had to start looking at our economic situation. So I'm happy to have this question. Mr. Speaker, there's a couple of things.

Firstly, there's the...

I'm not on mute on my end, Mr. Speaker, but I do apologize. It does seem that I have a number of things in front of me and people are buzzing me actively to tell me that I've done this incorrectly.

So Mr. Speaker, I do have another first reading of bills here. It is the Bill 50, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 20212022 that would also be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 49, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 20212022 to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.