Caroline Wawzonek
Deputy Premier
Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to say this again very clearly on behalf of my own responsibility in the areas of the department that any statement about the government's position on land withdrawals on anything that is multidepartmental, that doesn't come from a single official like this. It has to be multidepartmental. It has to be wholeofgovernment. So, yes, this is, again, minutes which is reflective of the ITI department's staff that were attending minutes. And I, again, went back to them to say let's be very clear that when we attend these meetings, we don't we have to...
Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following three documents: "InterActivity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 for the period of April 1st to March 31st, 2021;" "Project Charter for GNWTChamber of Mines COVID Recovery Working Group;" and "Funding Support for Airlines." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that as a confirmed. I expect it is likely a Yellowknife position, Mr. Speaker, although, again, I'm not entirely certain. It is joining in the sense of being a coordinator position and one that certainly will have to work interdepartmentally with a lot of departments and will certainly be expected to be coordinating work across the regions. Again, I'll have to confirm but that's the expectation I have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, you know, would be remiss not to acknowledge that, of course, the Department of ECE has a shared responsibility over the arts. With respect to ecommerce, I can say that the challenge here one of the challenges here, far apart from the technology alone, is, of course, then are we at risk of displacing those who may not wish to be part of the GNWT process? Would we be at risk where we are creating a situation where we're influencing or, you know, creating a market place that isn't fully fair and accessible to all? So there are some challenges in an online...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, of course we sort of shed our past lives a little bit as Ministers. So, you know but I can speak to the issue from the perspective as a Minister responsible for the Status of Women. And certainly I know the Member appreciates, this is an area that it involves obviously the Minister of Justice. It would involve potentially Health and Social Services as they do work with women's shelters as well as other ministries across the government.
The challenge with a proposal such as a Clare's Law, which certainly could well fall within my responsibility to promote...
Mr. Speaker, you've seen nothing yet in my capacity to speak. Now I get to talk about arts.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to art sales and art sales tracking, so at the moment I can say art sales aren't tracked by the NWT Arts Program in terms of the dollar value per sales or number of sales had. Again, you know, again, this is one where there's a number of individual artists across the Northwest Territories, some in collectives, some selling on their own, some selling, I know, under various social media channel.
And this is not an opportunity, this is not an area where the government is able to...
Mr. Speaker, today's mineral resource industry in the NWT is innovative, collaborative, environmentally conscious, and has the highest standards of safety. It collaborates with the GNWT and with Indigenous communities to enhance resources for capacity building and supports Indigenous participation in, and benefits received from, the mining industry.
The resource sector directly employs over 3,000 people in the Northwest Territories and contributes over $800 million in spending each year. It accounts for nearly a third of the Northwest Territories' gross domestic product. A healthy and vibrant...
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to try to be helpful and not repeat my answers but the simple fact is I'm back to the same response I gave at the beginning, that there are wonderful public servants and good people in human resources doing their very best to make sure that their processes are fair and that they are modern and that they are in keeping with the best practices of human resources processes anywhere else in Canada or the world.
Now, when I say about accessibility, I certainly have heard from individual employees direct to me. I have certainly heard from my own constituents direct to me. And...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, no, this is not there is not a blanket practice as what is described by the Member. Mr. Speaker, I this is a human system of 5,000 people strong. It is populated by wonderful people who work across the public service, great people in human resources. Does that mean that every single process and every single time at every single hiring is produces the end result that every person wants it to? Well, the end result is that some people don't get jobs. What we want is to have a process that is clear, transparent, accessible, and that is the purpose of human...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in hearing the Member's statement, I have been trying to go back to just see if, in fact, something has happened. Obviously, I have not been here for a particularly long time. To my best knowledge, I don't know that there's been a recent complete overall or complete review of the process of human resources. Certainly, part of the work that's happening right now with respect to the Indigenous recruitment retention framework as a significant framework that's meant to apply to all departments and be a major part of human resources work, that that doesn't...