Caroline Wawzonek
Deputy Premier
Statements in Debates
I hope I'm reading the right thing, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Bill 6, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 20232024, be read for a second Mr. Speaker, I'm reading the wrong let me try this again I think.
I'm on third reading. Unless somebody else thought I was on second reading or third reading okay, let me start this all again. Nothing has happened. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Bill 6, Supplementary Appropriations Act (Operations...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I told my kids that I wanted to use Pink Shirt Day as an opportunity to say something at the Assembly about bullying, and I asked them what they thought I should say.
My 12yearold said, You need to catch bullying quickly. You can't let the situation repeat itself. It gets harder to stop the longer the behaviours continue. You cannot let it be normalized. You cannot let it be routine. Disrespect should never be routine. She is right. It gets easier to ignore when a behaviour becomes normal. And so days of recognition like Pink Shirt Day are good occasions for...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 6, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 20232024, to be read for the first time. Thank you.
(audio) anywhere else, Mr. Speaker. So while we've gone down from tripling to doubling, Mr. Speaker, all the initiatives come through together. So the first step, of course, is the development of the mandate, which as done by Cabinet, but certainly involves review and input from Members, and then with that we'll go through the process of the budget establishment, and that includes once we've got that mandate we can look at initiatives. Initiatives are meant to actually then support the mandate. Obviously one of our four key items is economic growth, and the mineral resource industry continues...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the mineral exploration tax credit is a flowthrough tax credit tool that's used, and it's not one that would be effective here. We don't have the sort of financial institutions and large-scale investors that would make it useful as a tax tool from the Northwest Territories. We really are looking at the federal government where for them, in our view, there would be no revenue losses. It would be an opportunity to really just create this opportunity for more investment in the North and for an incentive to invest in the North.
To look more generally at what can...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECE provides a variety of professional development and training opportunities for educators across the Northwest Territories. So specifically JK to 12 school educators receive training on the Indigenous languages and education handbook and in both Dene Kede and Inuuqatigiit that guide Indigenizing education in the Northwest Territories. ECE also allocates funding directly to education bodies for resource development and community support, which includes professional development for language and cultural education training, including landbased training. In...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can, and what I would suggest I do, though, is perhaps we can I don't know if we'll be able to table it by tomorrow but at the earliest opportunity, Mr. Speaker, we could put that information before the House or at the very least perhaps circulate where people can find it. It's on the Department of Finance's website under the diversity and inclusion services, the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework. There's a very long document. And then there's a very long list, every single department, every single agency has their own plan. Every one of them is...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's been quite a number of different pieces that have rolled out in support of hiring of more hiring and stronger hiring of Indigenous people in the Northwest Territories. There's the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework is really the vanguard item that we have on that. The Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework has quite a number of action items in it for each department, and each department has its own individualized framework or plan, action plan, within that. They're all available online. I won't start to name them off now, but...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mean, there's a number of things. One of those things is housing. So this is where it does become a wholeofgovernment issue. We want to ensure, of course, that if it's Yellowknife or wherever it might be, that the investment be aware that there's housing available for that staff. We want it to be them to be aware that there's land available for the expansion. So, again, the department of land's involvement. And we want them to be aware of the support from the government broadly, both from the perspective of infrastructure but also from the perspective of economic...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes that Bill 6, Supplementary Appropriations Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 20232024, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.