Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. The federal government's budget will be coming out, obviously, next month, and I think, in terms of the northern residents deduction, we will have to look and see what has been included there. I can assure the Member that I am alive to what he is raising and that we will continue to engage with the Department of Finance from the federal government to work toward the best possible value and outcome for the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just confirming that the difference between the two that is the amount that is used for administration of the tax, so there is a portion that goes towards administration and not only to the offset. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, I'll let the deputy minister continue, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know there have been some improvements in terms of increasing the capacity to undertake that work. I would like to get back to the Member with a more specific answer around whether or not there is anything left to do and, perhaps, be able to provide more detail with respect to what may be happening in different regions. That is not something that I have in front of me. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I may have just created an extra piece of work for the Department of Finance. It was part of the public accounts, but it certainly could be tabled on its own, or as part of the public accounts. I suppose that if there is a preference of the committee, we'd be open to hearing back from them. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am more than happy to do that. Madam Chair, no, there is no intention to have any sort of ongoing reduction to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. This was simply a reflection of a particular one-time program, and of course, it remains the commitment of this government to continue to seek out opportunities for more programs of that nature to hopefully bring in similar opportunities. There is a continuing intention to maintain funding to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, the question is to how successful the Department of Finance is, and the GNWT more generally, in improving telecommunications. To properly answer that is a much longer answer than what, I think, the committee is looking for in the review of the mains. It is one of the commitments in the mandate to improve telecommunications connectivity. It is one that we will, therefore, have to be reporting back to this House on in terms of developing a plan to show that we are going to improve our connectivity. That will involve looking at a baseline of where we are now in order to measure where...

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I had alluded to earlier, we've already had a Ministers' meeting for Ministers of all provinces, territories, and the federal government, and we've been following up, and we've continued to have dialogue and continue to have engagement with the federal government about the situation. I am alive to the degree of engagement necessary when you look at the source of the income that's on our page here, and where it comes from, and maintaining a positive relationship with the federal government is going to be important, and to have dialogue about our finances, and our...

Madam Chair, I am not going to commit to taking steps to update something until I know whether it needs to be updated, or perhaps if there are other tools that will actually accomplish the goal at hand. Madam Chair, in my view, the goal at hand is to have a representative workforce and to improve the representation of the workforce. My commitment is to make sure that we look for the best possible way to achieve that goal. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The fund has now become professionally managed. That has improved the returns that are being received on the fund. The projection on the rate of the percent of the fund that is now actually interest, as opposed to the principal, it's projected to be close to 5 percent in the course of this fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Chair.