Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it's not an increase per se to the benefit itself. Just to be clear. It's an increase to the amount that's required to cover the medical travel benefits. So medical travel assistance, it's a benefit that a number of corporations and companies and businesses provide to employees. It's one that the Government of the Northwest Territories provides to our employees, to public servants. It is part of the collective agreement with the Union of Northern Workers as well as with NWTTA and is provided as well for excluded employees, senior managers. As such, when there...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm inclined to get back to the Members. I'm looking at the material I have in front of me and this is not I don't obviously have the programming area specifics, and I don't want to misstate what exactly is being increased so I don't want to also conflate the fact that bound up in here is the fact that there's an end coming change on March 1st. So I'd like to take that one back and just make sure I can get a better explanation than what I have done so far of exactly what this is for. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the I believe the new positions that we are going to have coming in sorry, let me just take actually, let hand it to Mr. Courtoreille, please.

Mr. Speaker, I think that's an excellent question for this House. It certainly traditionally hasn't been something that's been widely considered or widely discussed in the Northwest Territories. But the reality is we have over 20 different energy grids scattered across the territories. We're not linked into the North American energy infrastructure. And it may well be that the future of nuclear, as it's proving to develop and if it's proving to be safe, could well be a direction that the Northwest Territories wishes to go, that communities want to go. And so that certainly is a conversation...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I mean, again, certainly the public accounts do provide that type of accounting. This is this supplementary appropriation is really just seeking to make up the amount that we at this point have available to us knowing the actuals to date. I mean, there may well be, and I expect that there indeed probably are, still some amounts to be that will still be coming in to communities and then through communities to MACA from communities and community firefighting efforts up to ECC. So the total fire suppression, total firefighting budgets, and reconciliations of that, are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the agreements themselves are agreements with the federal government so the degree to which the agreement itself can be made public would be subject to what is in the specific clauses of the agreement, and they're federal government agreements that we are signing on to. So I anticipate that the agreement document itself probably has a clause in it that does not make it a public document. All that said, in terms of, as I said, you know, what numbers are subject to which ones are new agreements, which ones had carryovers, there certainly is some that can some details...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't know if the process is if it's formally closed or not. I know that there were there was a suggestion that each region had individuals that were accepting applications. And I don't know if it was time limited per se, but it was there were eligibility elements to it that were under that's right, there was an additional SEED directive. So if individuals wanted to have a look back at the SEED directive, that would provide the full eligibility requirements as they apply from those who may have been affected in the summer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That assumptions is correct. There's an amount here reflecting the 2022 flood as well as an amount here reflecting the 2023 wildfires. They, just to be clear, don't include necessarily or they don't include the firefighting suppression costs that would have been incurred by ECC, which is part of a separate request we've seen. But this is for the emergency amounts that were incurred under, as I said, both 2022 and 2023 for those two events in MACA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the travel support was really just for people who were not able to access the flights that were made available for people. Those who drove a vehicle, then, by drove their own vehicles received this. So if it was an individual who was a patient, if they were evacuated by Health and Social Services or another associated agency or then they likely wouldn't qualify. But I'd be happy to follow up directly with the Member just to see if you know, if there's anything else that can be provided to support those residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So these are contractspecific up to the Inuvik Regional Hospital and the Arctic Family Centre and the Inuvik Public Health Office, so all Beaufort Delta related. And there are two specific contracts at issue. In both cases, those contracts saw increases as a result of some inflationary pressures that were being experienced. So, you know, again, not perhaps dissimilar to some of the challenges being felt in other areas of both the government and the private sector that just with whether between labour market shortages, increased inflation, increased expenses for insurance...