Deputy Premier Minister of Finance Minister of Infrastructure Minister Responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation
Caroline Wawzonek was first elected to the 19th Legislative Assembly in 2019 as the Member for Yellowknife South. Ms. Wawzonek served as Minister of Justice, Minster of Finance, Minister responsible for the Status of Women and the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. In 2023, Ms. Wawzonek was acclaimed to the 20th Legislative Assembly and returned to Executive Council as Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance, Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister Responsible for the NWT Power Corporation.
Ms. Wawzonek holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Calgary (2000) and a law degree from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law (2005). Her academic journey included language studies in China and Taiwan, as well as legal internships in the Philippines and England. Born in Calgary, AB, she has called Yellowknife home since 2007.
After establishing her criminal law practice post-admission to the Law Society of the NWT, Ms. Wawzonek appeared in all levels of NWT courts and engaged in circuit court travel. She later joined Dragon Toner, expanding her practice to general litigation and administrative law until becoming a member of the 19th Assembly.
Since 2007, she has taken on leadership roles in the legal community, including the presidency of the Law Society of the Northwest Territories (LSNT), section chair for the Canadian Bar Association Northwest Territories Branch (CBA-NT), and committee membership in various working groups. Her community involvement extends to appointments in multiple Yellowknife organizations, and she received a national award in 2017 for her contributions to Canadian Women in Law.
Ms. Wawzonek, a mother of two, enjoys running, paddleboarding, and time outdoors.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you it was just under $2 million for the airlift up into the high Arctic communities. The situation was a little bit different in terms of timing, in terms of where we were at in the season, and mitigation measures that we were attempting to put into place. That was the situation where it was quite late in the season, and there was very little ability for anyone to mitigate. Conversely, in this situation, what we have the opportunity to do, myself and Minister for Industry, Tourism and Investment, and our teams, is to work directly with the...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 24)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is -- well, so part of this was with respect to the radio system -- I'll start with that -- the radio system at the men's facility is older, it did not integrate with the women's facility. So at the time of preparing, not knowing of course, what may or may not come of the proposals that are a part of Operations Budget 2024, subject to those approvals, if the facility in Fort Smith remained operational and remained opened in its complete state, they would require security upgrades because the current facility does not meet its requirements. Certainly, if...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Inuvik branch of the line, I would have to confirm. I believe it would be NorthwesTel that continues to maintain ownership of that line. By contrast, of course, we have a P3 partnership on our end on the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Line. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 24)
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will certainly confirm that, whether that's with the other hat that I wear or with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. There is an outstanding work happening in Alberta that has been the source of some delay, and we are all keen to see that there is no further delay. As I mentioned earlier, these need to be on the winter road, which does come with certain project timelines that, again, I'm quite keen to see are not lost. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 24)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this certainly did experience some rather significant, and in many cases, fairly unusual overruns. I mean, this was a circumstance where the funding was approved at a time prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. And this is obviously not the only project to have experienced delays as a result of that, but certainly is one. But then those delays related to supply chain, related to materials, related to labour shortages, were magnified when there was another -- there was a third party accident in terms of transporting one of the key items and then the vendor failed to...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise the House that the honourable Member for Hay River North, Premier, will be absent from the House for today and tomorrow to attend the Western Premiers' Conference in Whitehorse, Yukon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 24)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is an additional contract item. It does note further down below with respect to the major project in Colville Lake for their school, they are still in a design stage on that project, Mr. Chair, and the community did have an engagement just last spring to sort of rebegin the process of concerning where they're at in this -- what is becoming a fairly long project. I know further that the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment is reaching out to the community, to the chief, to see that there is sort of a renewed timeline on this. That engagement was only just in...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 24)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on my left is Bill MacKay, the deputy minister for the Department of Finance. On my right, Terence Courtoreille, deputy secretary to the financial management board.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 24)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so, again, this is a situation where there's a number of breakdowns of things. Site preparation is really about half, if not more than half, of the cost. And so the short answer should be yes, because these ones are coming up on the winter road, and so we are still anticipating that that will be ready to roll for 2025. And site preparation, as I note, that is a significant portion of the rest of that cost, so probably over $2 million or $2.4 million roughly. Obviously, we'll wait and see what the financial bill is on that. I don't know that I have a final in...
