Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that's not my understanding. So we did file -- or the Northwest Territories Power Corporation did file its rate application in time for October 30th, and by that point were able to sort of notify or say that there would be a subsidy included. A formal letter then gets issued ultimately from the Department of Finance, from my office, to confirm that the subsidy has been approved. So they're aware that it has been proposed and hopefully coming and not my understanding that it's held up. There's quite a lot that's involved. It's, you know, many hundreds of pages of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is, indeed, relating to the school funding framework requirements and -- so, yes, there's an increase in this case -- yes, I'm definitely not going to be the right Minister to necessarily get into explaining exactly how that calculation gets made. But there is -- the good news is that yes, indeed, it does tend to be impacted by determination of attendance or a determinance of the number of students that are attending, and it gets adjusted in the year because our fiscal year and their school year don't necessarily quite align. But in this case, we did -- yes -- sorry...

(audio) Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, if -- as I think one of the Members earlier was asking, the public utilities board does need to know that there's been a confirmed approval to provide some form of subsidy to what otherwise wouldn't be costs that would be borne by ratepayers so that it can be considered as part of their process. If it doesn't get approved, it won't be considered as part of that process is my understanding. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate that question. So first just -- I know there's been sort of chatter, if you will, around the idea of a freeze. So we did put out that there would be some -- we wanted departments to engage in fiscal restraint which is not the same necessarily as a freeze and that was -- is likely to probably arise in the discussions over the course of today. But the idea is as we come to the idea of the fiscal year, we are saying -- you know, departments do have budgets. If they are under a certain amount then they can -- you know, for example, if there's an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And no, unfortunately, there's not. Again, we are the regulating body that ensures about the provision of insurance and how -- you know, how the behaviour of the insurance companies or the brokers might be but not a control over their commercial market and what the commercial market might be doing to prices. That said, Mr. Speaker, we do set the rate for the cost of having your insurance. I mean, there's a tax that's levied on insurance companies. We have kept that rate low. We have a 1 percent only for fire insurance, and we've kept ours at 3 percent on the main...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I certainly do have that -- it's not necessarily in the supplementary estimate documents or background materials; I certainly can get that to Members. I'm just not finding -- I mean, that's what I'm digging back now to before the winter break. So I don't have that coming up quickly. Yes, I'll have to get back to the Member with the breakdown of how we landed on that number. Thank you.

Back again, Mr. Chair, we have on my left deputy minister of finance Bill MacKay, and on my right Mandi Bolstad, the deputy secretary to the financial management board.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, fundamentally, the costs that go into generating power, whether it's the fuel or whether it's the upkeep, continue to grow, and the sales of power in the Northwest Territories remain flat, and that has been the case for a very long time, long before any -- before this Assembly was composed. So, you know, we can certainly try to increase those to whom we are selling, and in particular, it's, you know, not a handful of residential customers and probably not even converting a handful to electric heating, but to look for industrial customers. So the power...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Chair, briefly. I am here to present Tabled Document 279-20(1), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025. This document proposes a total appropriation increase of $74.725 million comprised of the following items:

$16.9 million to provide funding to address the Marine Transportation Services projected deficit for 2024-2025;

$14.7 million to support the increase in road construction and maintenance costs, community support for fuel resupply, and utilities and lease costs;

$14.5 million to support health care operations in the NWT; and,

$12...