Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. Of that 10 percent, you often have businesses that employ guides locally, boat operators, airline operators locally, and certainly may use other tourist products here, such as local hotels during transfers and food operators, logistics, supplies, et cetera. Whether it's direct employees or whether it's indirectly spent, those who may be based in the South are still often very important local operators. What I would, perhaps, suggest or commit to doing is to provide information, to the extent that we have it, that outlines the spending that we are aware of by those...

Thank you, Madam Chair. If you are a community, you would go through Community Futures. You might consider the Community Futures Regional Relief and Recovery Fund. If you are an individual, then you certainly may want to start, obviously, with CanNor, which is one of our great federal partners; go to NWT Tourism. There are quite a number of different pots that might apply, depending on the nature of what's being sought. Perhaps I will send that to Deputy Minister Strand to just outline some of those specifics.

At present, there is not a set service standard for responding under the northern manufacture policy. Again, the average time right now for processing the application, ensuring that it goes from start to finish completed, is four to six weeks. If having set standards is something that the manufacturers believe would be beneficial, would be useful, then, again, I would hope and expect that that is going to come through in the procurement review and that we can find something that is more functional and more workable, ensuring that, again, if there are other certain standards that are expected...

I was looking for some information rather quickly. I can give an average, and the average is four to six weeks. I am not clear if that includes an application that is for both of those. I expect that it is. It may be that it is less complicated if it is only under BIP. Mr. Speaker, I should note it doesn't include a timeline if there needs to be further information, if an application is incomplete at the front end. As such, the clock would get stopped on the government end to allow a proponent to add to their application if need be.

I am going to do my best to maintain the principles from the national inquiry which say, that you must look at all 231 of the calls to justice, that we have to take decolonizing approach, inclusive approach, a self-determining approach, a trauma-informed and cultural safety approach. I simply am not going to pick out one and give an answer right now, Mr. Speaker, of which one will or will not be implemented when or how. I am struggling, Mr. Speaker, with how to be decolonizing in the approach to the action plan, working within a system that is still the system that people were telling us is...

Implementing all 231 calls to justice will, indeed, cost probably not only millions. It may well cost billions of dollars. That's not going to deter me from putting forward the implementation plan, the action plan, and, again, the draft plan because, again, the point to be is: it's going to be a living document that goes back out into the community, to the people who we're purporting to be serving.

No, it's not going to be a full costed plan. What I do intend to do is to try my best to subscribe to the principles that are in the final report and speaking to those principles, which is what they...

I think that is exactly the kind of question that should be debated in the House, and I am pleased to have it brought to the floor and, frankly, pleased to have it come back, if necessary, for reconsideration or further discussion or debate. I don't think that they are necessarily in conflict with one another. I don't think they should be in opposition to one another. As a government, we want to do everything we can to ensure that Northerners have the skills, the training, the education, the underlying health, the housing, all of the parameters that are going to allow them to apply for any and...

I have previously said we are going to take a review of the Affirmative Action Policy. Those reviews have been done many times and many ideas brought forward. There does need to then be collaboration on all sides of the House about bringing forward the actual changes and seeing them through. If, in the course of that review, it's brought to our attention that Indigenous men are a group that requires some specific attention over and above Indigenous persons generally and over above Indigenous women, I am open to receiving that feedback. For the time being, Mr. Speaker, again, I am going to say...

Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories is committed to providing a safe and inclusive workplace for all its employees. This includes educating our public servants on how racism can manifest itself in the workplace. Racism is a belief in a hierarchy of human value. It is a belief, conscious or unconscious, that some people are worth more than others. Racism is easy to see when it takes the form of specific acts of hate and violence, but systemic racism hides in plain sight. It is the kind of racism where the power of one racial group is exhibited and upheld over others in...

I want to say "procurement review" instead of simply saying "yes," because, really, the intention of the procurement review is to do exactly this, to look at barriers and to ensure that the barriers that may exist are brought to the attention of the government in a specific way so that we can identify the barriers broadly and systemically, not one by one, not solving one problem at a time for one proponent, but to truly look at having a system that is functional for everyone who is applying.

Again, the northern manufacturers policy is part of procurement review. I want to acknowledge that the...