Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. The appeal process itself is actually done by a third party. With respect to whether the overall process has ever been reviewed, not to my knowledge. This is an area that I already, in only the short few months that I have been a Minister, have had many enquiries from Members about staffing appeals, so I am alive to the fact that this does seem to be an issue that is coming back to all of the Members in this House. While I can't right now commit necessarily to a full review of this particular program, I certainly can commit to going back and making some further...

Madam Chair, we will continue to comply with the agreement that established the Heritage Fund and that establishes the contribution levels. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think our total debt servicing payments, that includes both interest and principal, is $33 million. That is maybe not entirely the breakdown that the Member is looking for, but that at least now is giving some collected number. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This policy has been subject to two reviews over the past 20-some years, and what I would suggest and commit to do is to engage with the appropriate committee in a technical briefing on this, so that we can start to have a dialogue on the work that has been done on the policy and on its contents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've also never had a government job until now, and my process was a bit unique. Perhaps this a conversation I can have with the Member not in this forum. I don't have hiring information in front of me; I only have the budgeting main estimates in front of me. It will depend on each job. Technical jobs will have very different hiring processes than a less technical job; there may well be exams for certain technical requirements, may well be essays, language testing, et cetera. So, it will vary quite a bit. I expect there may be some specific contests that the Member is...

Madam Chair, thank you. There was actually a request for qualifications process that was under way earlier in the 2019 year. That process is complete. The next stage was for an actual request for proposals for the prospective retailers, and it's that second stage that has been delayed that was supposed to be out this January. That has been delayed somewhat. We are at stage 2. There have already been some anticipated retailers who met the qualifications, and they're now being invited back to bid on the next stage as soon as that is available. As I have said, again, I am alive to the fact that...

Madam Chair, I am informed that, in 2019-2020, we had roughly 75 appeals in total, but I can't say what the total percentage that is as compared to total applications. I will commit to getting that number for the Member. Thank you.

Madam Chair, there is a detailed policy, and it is a complex process, one that I have been familiarizing myself with, but in the interest of everyone's time, I will ask the deputy minister to provide some further detail. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have looked at their limits, but I don't know how close they are. I don't know what their internal fiscal planning might be. I am not basing our planning on the planning of the two neighbouring territories. Although we remain in contact, certainly, with our territorial neighbours, the North as a whole now has the Arctic Policy Framework to work from. There are some shared goals within that and some shared challenges within that. While we are all working as neighbours, I also am not going to be constrained, necessarily, by what they may or may not be doing with the...

Madam Chair, to my knowledge, that kind of interview has not been conducted. Again, I have heard this issue raised now by Members on more than one occasion, so it is clear that we will have to provide, and as I've said, I will commit to providing some more transparency about the process, the considerations that go into the payment of bonuses, and how it's done. Again, I certainly can assure the Members, at least for this point, that it's not done by way of taking funds out from other programs. It's meant to be funded internally, and there are caps on the total amount that is able to be spent...