Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, yes, that is the expectation, is that an Indigenous person gets the advantage, an Indigenous person -- Indigenous to one of the member groups of the Northwest Territories does have -- would -- expected to have an advantage. And, Mr. Speaker, I take the comment earlier, I should acknowledge it with respect to some of the smaller communities we should be considering, and I'm happy to go back to the department and ensure, that, indeed, they -- students are aware of this program. The last plug I'll make is we also have the remote work policy. So, again, quite a lot of change, quite a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to say yes, but I just want to be clear that I -- to my understanding, there's not -- you know, in the decision papers, templates, which are in the financial administration manual, and actually are online, there wouldn't necessarily be a line item right now that says GRI compliant or GRI -- you know, has proceeded through GRI. I'm certainly happy to consider looking at that. So again, if there's benefit, that's a decision for more than just me sitting here right now. But if that's something that departments find helpful, if the analysts find helpful, yes, again, I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we do, I believe, try to do some monitoring of that, and I'm not sure if I have that in front of me. I'll see if the deputy minister or the director might, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I believe we certainly could make -- add a page to the report that comes out detailing the initiatives and different programs that are being spent in here. I anticipate that should be not a problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. I pulled up looking at payroll tax revenues that have -- we were getting in over the course of the year. With respect to human resources and active positions, the GNWT -- or sorry, the Department of Finance, we don't have change in the Tlicho region. We did break out Tlicho region this, and there's not changes within the Department of Finance for the Tlicho region. We're sitting at two full-time and we'll -- in the last year and continuing up to full-time next year. So there may be a page that I'm not seeing, and I'm happy to take that up and just go...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, some years ago, had a briefing note on Cameron Hills and how it wound up with us. I don't have that here now. The Department of Finance has the role of holding all of the costs, all of the budget for environmental liabilities as a total. Cameron Hills is one that went into a CCAA proceeding, and we then went out with the receiver to try to have it sold and if I recall, there may have been some activity in that space, some not, and I believe, again, that it was the receiver that did some of the estimates here in conjunction with ECC. But, really, beyond that level of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's quite a number of things that -- different programs and services available. There's, of course, the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework which is an overarching way of looking at how the GNWT engages with potential employees, communities. There's also a number of programs, not the least of which is Indigenous Career Gateway Program. This is an opportunity that was not fully subscribed just a few years ago when I had started here and is now very fully subscribed which is a certainly positive circumstance. But it's entry level positions...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, yes, absolutely. Part -- a big part of the GRI work, and particularly with respect to the movement to have departments involved in doing and completing their first, second, and third rounds of evaluations under the GRI framework, is to create a culture whereby we are in a continuous evaluation, we are able to undertake and know that we are undertaking reviews of our programs. That was not necessarily a very structured, organized, or enforced process prior to GRI. So by doing so, we are better placed going forward on programs, particularly -- well, I was going to say...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is a standard that we do try to meet. There are thousands of claims that are -- and requests for support that are processed every year. I do certainly get some BFs on this item that come through the office, particularly when there's been a challenge where someone has an appointment and they haven't received their information about where they might be going, a flight or hotel, so we do then try to very quickly make those connections. But overall, Mr. Chair, again, it's -- there's thousands that do get processed and that where folks are able to access their...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have on my left Bill MacKay, the deputy minister of finance. And on my right, Tram Do, the director of shared corporate service.