Caroline Wawzonek

Mr. Speaker, destructive events like flooding and wildfire are top of mind when considering how climate change has challenged the Northwest Territories in recent years. There is, however, another climaterelated challenge affecting many of the territory's residents: delayed winter and ice road construction.

Mr. Speaker, our winter road system connects nine Northwest Territories communities that are not accessible by allseason roads, with highway crews building and maintaining approximately 1,400 kilometers of winter roads, ice roads, and ice crossings every year. To put this in perspective, that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all of the revenue that comes in, there is what's left after the rebates to residents and businesses and then to the community governments, what's left at that point does not cover the full amount of programs and services that the government has, for example Arctic Energy Alliance, EV vehicle rebates, bike rebates, the carbon climate change efforts by ECC, and certainly does not cover the costs of infrastructure projects that we have underway to bring about cleaner energy. So, for example, the Inuvik wind project, studies that are on the transmission line...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are limited in our flexibility in terms of what fuels are taxed and in terms of the tax rates on those fuels. And so to that extent, when the federal government has opted to exempt a particular type of heating fuel, yes, we did mirror what they did as that is the limited flexibility that we have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mean, again, Mr. Speaker, I definitely will commit to providing here in the next couple of days detail to the Member from Monfwi about what has happened over the last several years and where the project's at in terms of its progress. Some of the funding certainly has come from CIRNAC. The GNWT is also, then, applying for additional funds from CIRNAC. I can't say off the top of my head whether the Tlicho government's contributed anything directly and I certainly expect and I know that they are involved as a partner as this is a project on their lands. And, again, I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's I'll have to get the number to the Member, standing on the floor of the House I'm just looking at my notes and don't have it in front of me. So I will correspond back to the Member on where the budget is at. I can also say that there certainly has been some advancement. There are some funds already secured and discussions are underway with the Tlicho government on this project. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again let me take a look at what number of barges we have going in, when or if they were missed, and what we need to do to make sure that that doesn't happen again. I certainly can't promise that low water levels won't necessarily interrupt the barging season again but what we can do, and I know that this was something that I saw discussed from afar last time, was ensuring that the timing and the planning around when those barges arrive aligns in accordance with what the community needs and the timing of their resupply. So I certainly will commit to sitting...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was in the House over the last Assembly when this issue came up. I want to start by acknowledging it is a challenge with a community that is isolated and not on the winter road resupply right now. The safety of residents as they travel remains top priority for everyone and building a winter road across Great Slave Lake certainly is not without some significant challenges. And while I acknowledge there was a road out in that region, as the Member noted, it would be an additional 100 kilometres to actually make that accessible and with no guarantees as to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll try to be brief. Mr. Speaker, it maintains flexibility in how the revenues are used by the Government of the Northwest Territories, in short. So much as I had feared, the federal government, of course, once again changed their goalposts first back in April, which is what led to some lengthy discussions in this House in the last Assembly, and then again in the fall. And they changed those goalposts based on political priorities. They're set from Ottawa and by a different government.

By hanging on to the system by administering it ourselves here, we were able to do...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a number of different conversations happening both between the Government of the Northwest Territories as well as the Northwest Territories Power Corporation along with the Tlicho government. I make note, firstly, that we were all at Roundup together recently, both the Department of Infrastructure and, I think for the first time ever, the CEO of the power corporation also has attended, as did representatives of the Tlicho government, including the grand chief, and it was a very good opportunity to, I think, begin to advance some of these discussions...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Yukon and Nunavut are under, long before we did, many, many years ago created their systems with the federal system. At this point, we would come in under the federal system much like Alberta and Manitoba and others did when the last round of changes came through. So, and I wouldn't I mean, I can certainly provide a more detailed comparison between the Yukon system and ours and between Nunavut's system and ours. There's differences in terms of the rebates that go to individuals. There's differences in the rebates that go to businesses, including...