Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have the relevant contracts now awarded and that will provide more consistency in terms of the maintenance that is occurring in that region. Mr. Speaker, there's also some particular contracts related to larger scale repair work, for example dip repair right at the crossing, so -- and along with a number of other projects. And, again, a couple of them certainly did get delayed over this summer season but I can say, again, that those are now awarded. And what I'd suggest with respect to contingency is ensuring that there's a wider degree of overlap in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the paving project for the airport is right now expected to be over 2027-2028 and somewhere in the course of that, we will be able to include the paving of the bypass road. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this too, I do just want to just provide quickly before -- you know, we pay the costs that we pay for services, and certainly within health care, these are essential services for residents of the Northwest Territories. But, Mr. Speaker, the auditor general was bringing together what for us is the P3 project which is the Stanton Hospital as well as the Liwego'ati Building which is where the long-term care facility and now primary care are housed. So this has been a conversation that I've had with the Auditor General's Office of Canada that does our audits...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the opportunity that arose to sublease the building was later in the procurement process. This has been some of the challenge with the audit is that there were multiple stages to what occurred from back in 2013 when the project first originated up to the last stage of that project which is when that decision was made to sublease. At that point in time, there was this opportunity because the investment that was being made by one of the partners to decommission, renovate, you know, clean up that old building, that involved a significant amount of investment...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Bill 11, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles Act, be read for the second time.

The proposed, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles Act, will allow police to move more quickly with their investigations. The bill amends the Motor Vehicles Act to update and clarify the ways in which the registrar of motor vehicles can share information about drivers, vehicles, and holders of general identification cards. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have to acknowledge I have become a bit of a generalist in this job, not an expert. So I'm not going to purport to be an expert in flattening hierarchies. I certainly will commit to take that back to the Department of Finance. We -- you know, things have come up here over this last session,b looking at Indigenous hiring, looking at empowering public servants, and looking at morale. And so I've already asked that the department and I sit down and take all those under consideration as soon as session's over. I'm going to add flattening hierarchy to that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would be more than happy to encourage every public servant to take the opportunity to use, whether it's the red tape reduction working group firstly, which redtape@gov.nt.ca -- always happy to get that in when I can. But to submit if there's a specific process that is burdensome. Obviously it's the frontline workers who know that best. If they're running into a process, running into a program, running into something internally or even outward facing that is red tape-esq, then raising it specifically to the attention of this group is really quite important...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have to look back over time and see the degree to which that has been considered but also whether or not that impacts any of the work that's happening. As I've said, for right now the work that is coming through in terms of some of the repair of potholes and ruts that have arisen over the course of the summer, that is getting dealt with as much as possible before too much snowfall. And with the snowfall, they are doing what they can to, you know, still monitor and do some ice blading, some snow plowing, to try to mitigate where there were some tough spots. So...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it has been a tough year -- or a tough season for a lot of the roads in the Northwest Territories, including this stretch of particular highway. There were some challenges this year with maintenance, Mr. Speaker. One of the contracts that had gone out -- it went out, and there was a request for a negotiated contract. That slowed down the procurement process. We were able to ask the existing contractor to continue to maintain the road but certainly not the same as having someone in place more permanently. So although the work was getting done, it wasn't...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all communities across the Northwest Territories need to continue to be invested in, and analysis gets done, whether it's department of health looking at long-term care facilities, whether it's education looking at educational needs, those processes continue. One of the things that does come to me from looking at the audit is the importance of having good planning, is the importance of having good records, and quite frankly, is the importance of having all of that consolidated in one place with experts in that area and that is something that we do now have...