Member Yellowknife South

Deputy Premier
Minister of Finance
Minister Responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation
Minister Responsible for Strategic Infrastructure, Energy and Supply Chains

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,  Minister 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.
 

Committees

Caroline Wawzonek
Yellowknife South
Member's Office

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Box
1320
Extension
12177
Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance, Minister of Infrastructure, and Minister Responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Mr. Chair, I don't have that. I have only the information with respect to the supplementary estimates here in front of me. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Mr. Chair, I'm able to say that I don't think we track that, the reason being that we don't currently have an operating definition for an Indigenous business per se and as a result of that, it's not easy to say the individual landlord is, in fact, is Indigenous. There's times where, for a development corporation for example, is an easier answer, but there are other businesses that may well be owned, operated, or partially owned or partially operated, and we don't right now have that definition so I'm not able to track that. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, this is certainly far from being the only program or fund directed to support addictions use so happy that the Member is pointing that out.

This is one of the examples of where Health Canada came out with some additional funding and provided that funding under what is called the substance use and addictions program contribution agreement, and this one is quite specifically with respect to smoking cessation, so trying to reduce the number of individuals who are cutting back or reducing or ultimately ceasing smoking. And so it's money that's coming over the...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, and it's not. I think that that's actually -- it's a good question, and it's one that -- it's important, actually, that they not be conflated, I'd suggest, in that we still want to be able to go to the federal government, particularly with the nation building scale work, the kind of infrastructure that provinces, you know, arguably not taken for granted in an expressed way but have and have at their avail that were built, whether it's a national railway, whether it's a national highway, whether it's capital level airports, ports, you know, pipelines, whatever it might...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, Mr. Chair, I do -- so I do have the breakdowns as between TCSA versus NTHSSA but I'm not -- I don't know that I have the breakdown individually within each region or community, so if that's the level of detail that the Member's looking for I would have to -- although I can see if perhaps deputy secretary might have more information.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I mean, I see, I believe utility rates would have seemed to have been changing across different regions both in terms of the electricity costs as well as transportation of fuel. So you may well see some higher costs, for example, in the Sahtu, but I -- again, the breakdown I have, shows as compared between the budget versus costs, and we have increases in the Beaufort Delta, in the Deh Cho -- particularly in Beaufort Delta, and Deh Cho, North Slave. Those three are showing right now as being over their budgets. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And first of all, I do want to commit that the human resources -- or the health recruitment unit that does -- is a shared responsibility between health and finance. More than happy to have them follow up if there -- if we can identify the specific programs that the Member's suggesting, we'll make sure they're following up and even just generally, perhaps, take an opportunity to see that we recruiting -- we do tend to recruit almost all, if not all, graduates from Aurora College, but if there's specifically some Indigenous focused programs elsewhere, that would be very...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it is a formal letter that is written. I don't have it here since I was not anticipating necessarily to speak to that with respect to the contents of the supplementary appropriation requests. I can say we did identify some of the key pressure points that we've seen over the last five years, the wildfires, for instance, flooding two years in a row, wildfires over the course of multiple years, the costs of those that are incurred often have to get carried and carried over while we are waiting for DFAA funding to come back in, and some of those costs are born...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm certainly happy to speak, again, a little bit to some of the circumstances that led to the proposal to have a $12 million over four years, so 48 over four years rather, 12 a year, and hopefully that can alleviate some of the concern or confusion.

What was in my mind, and I just couldn't find my notes from last week because, really, they were relating to my knowledge of this from being NTPC Minister, one of the reasons for selecting this option of doing the $12 million over four, it -- well, for one, it was the lowest rate impact that we were looking to...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are, indeed, industry standards for public sectors in terms of the amount that should, you know, ideally be held both between being an owned facility versus being a leased facility. Mr. Chair, again, I don't have with me right now for the supplementary estimate document where we fall within that. My recollection was that we actually were falling within the industry standard but, again, I don't have that here to confirm. There is a significant difference as between Yellowknife in particular, where there is a different market for office space as compared to...