Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there was a change in 20222023 as a result of a change in accounting standards and the way in which we were then being required under public accounting standards to consider what was an environmental liability and where to account for it. It's not a cash item today per se. It is a projection that when a government asset at some point in its future no longer is in use, that you have to account for what potential costs there might be to remediate that asset. So for historical assets, that's, you know, classic case of asbestos or led paint, but even more...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, on my left is deputy minister Steve Loutitt. On my right is Amy Burt, who has a very important title I'm sorry, I've forgotten it director of corporate services. Every time.

Madam Chair, I just want to point out there's an awful lot that can be done online now. And so I'm hoping to continue to improve the online services that folks have available to them so that they can do their DMVrelated work any time, any day. Thank you.

Madam Chair, just to note, I think I realize now. When there's these large funding pots, when they are already committed to capital projects, they'll show up in the capital budget. Sometimes you'll see them coming in under the operations budget but not when they're already tied to the capital projects. And but still happy to draw that distinction here. It's a people don't necessarily wouldn't outside this Assembly wouldn't understand the division, so I appreciate the opportunity to clarify that. Thank you.

I'll get ADM Courtoreille to answer that, please.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague from ECE spoke a little bit about this just recently in the House. It would certainly come likely to that department to consider this. And there's a lot of change that has happened quite recently to the income assistance policies that make that system more akin to what a guaranteed basic income would be, but not necessarily fully the types of pilots that are happening elsewhere. And there's an awful lot already that's underway, and hopefully those changes make a big difference for those people who are experiencing them and they can go...

We're on our own in the operations and maintenance, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, that sounds to me like that is likely in relation to Mackenzie Valley Highway or one of the associated projects, Great Bear River Bridge for instance. So if that is the case, then that would not be reflected in certainly not in this particular instance. Or on this particular page, sorry. It would yeah, it would come in under the capital planning process for any any of the large-scale funding for large scale capital projects will be in there. The smaller scale programs that are here aren't subject to the same sort of carryover process. They typically...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe that is correct, that ECE is the only other department that has formal evaluators. I may be in error, but. So what we are doing with respect to GRI is in you know, where needed in order to maintain the schedule and the timeline that we have is relying on contract dollars and having support from outside in addition to the internal staff that we've already mentioned. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we want to have a discussion, that means questions back and forth. So, well, if we're going to do that, Mr. Speaker, right now, I think it's also well-known we have, really, three large diamond mines that provide all of the royalties in the Northwest Territories, one of which is on the verge of closure; the other two are staying open for now but it's been pretty clear, and said many times here, that that shelf life is coming due fairly quickly. So in terms of what we do with that resource income, firstly, it's not perhaps as big as I would like it to be. But...