Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the priorities of the Assembly are priorities of the Ministers that stand here just as much as of MLAs. When matters come through our individual departments, that is I know certainly reflected in our mandate letter. I can speak for myself, Mr. Speaker, that it's reflected in the mandate letter that I have for my departments, and mandate letters very much govern what comes forth in departments as they're trying to ensure that they achieve what's in these mandate letters which are themselves a product that comes from other priorities and then, of course...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, again, appreciate that feedback as well. That work in fact is underway. I'd like to -- very happy to commit to get an update to this House, to the public, as to where we're at on that. The expectation I have is that there will be perhaps two deputy ministers who remain given that this is Crown corporation that does rely significantly on public dollars to help stabilize our power rates but otherwise looking to get professionals into that space who understand the energy space, who understand the complexities of the energy space, and who are in a position...

Slash Finance. It is a pickle, Mr. Speaker, thank you. So first of all, Mr. Speaker, the challenges that are being faced in the Northwest Territories Power Corporation that are certainly impacting the Department of Finance are not exclusively related to cost overages relating to different projects. There's a significant amount of impact from low water which is a situation entirely outside of my control or really that of anyone else in this House. We have been in a situation where the Snare plant has been burning a significant amount of diesel and in a situation where during -- because of the...

No, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, Mr. Speaker, we have certainly made efforts with fiscal responsibility here to try to make changes within our main estimates. Obviously, the main estimates come to the floor of this House, and we see how the changes to the main estimates go in the last government, and we were -- or when we last -- Assembly -- or last session, we were certainly asked to roll back some of the changes that we were proposing at that time. But it's a conversation for this House generally when the main estimates come forward, what else we can do to adjust them if that's the situation we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I happen to know that Housing NWT is actually putting together some information about their capital process and how they do their ranking and how they do their assessments because that then does feed into what we do at the financial management board and the Department of Finance and our processes. So, for example, when there's an increase on utilities costs, that's a forced growth matter that comes to the financial management board from Housing NWT, and it goes through the same forced growth process as everywhere else. And in that sense, they are in fact...

Mr. Speaker. At this point in time, we've simply put Ottawa on notice that we're going to need to have a conversation with them, that there's a lot more information that will have to go into that, a lot more planning, including, quite frankly, happy to have that conversation with Members of this House. It's not a unilateral decision. We are triggered by the fiscal responsibility policy. We've undertaken that effort to begin that conversation, but the process is not one that happens overnight. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Housing NWT is a Crown corporation and so their process is obviously a bit different than that of a department or a line department within the government. As such, they will go out and determine what level of need they may have. They will do their own assessments. They do their own capital planning. That number does come forward then, ultimately, but it doesn't go through exactly the same processes. They are also then out looking always for other sources of revenue, including GNWT, but also federal government, as well as their own sourced revenue that come...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is regular reviews and regular eyes on both highways throughout the entire year. What I've asked for though, and very happy to commit to the Member that this information will flow to the Members from the region as well, is that we have outlined in advance what the regular maintenance process is, what are the regular times when there's someone that does go out and inspect, and what is the regular maintenance that's going to happen. So MLAs and Members and regional residents know themselves in advance what they can expect. Obviously, when there's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we could certainly go back and look at the fiscal responsibility policy again and reconsider if there's some element within that that we want to look at in terms of changes how and when we report on different elements. The last time we did the review, there were some elements that were rejected by the Members at the time through the conversations we were having. There may be a different appetite from this group of Members as to what kind of responsibility they want to see in terms of reporting or engagements. One of the things that we certainly changed...