Thank you, Mr. Wind. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, that does help. I am trying my best to understand this area because I think it actually does not get often the oversight it needs. IT projects are notorious for going over budget, and software is very expensive. It's one of those areas where we spend millions and millions of dollars. I think many people's eyes just glaze over when it starts getting talked about, but it is not an insignificant part of the budget, both finances, procurement of software, and the ultimate management through this ISSS. I have spoken previously to the Minister about having an open data portal. Sorry. Also, in my list of areas that I forgot to mention, there is the NWT statistician, who is another office I often go to when I want to try to get some information about where information is. I believe ultimately there is a lot of work to do in kind of compiling this, what all the various departments have and the various roles and maybe having it in a very nice, searchable, open data portal. That is my dream. Can I get an update from the Minister on that work and if and when we can expect to see an open data portal? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There certainly was an expectation. I had an expectation that we would bringing some of our bundles of services online under the eServices portal this month or imminently. I think that, in fact, there has been identified a need to push that date back a little bit, but again, since we have the chief information officer here, I might ask him to give us the latest update, please.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Wind.

Thank you, Mr. Wind. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to hear that, and I recognize that one step, as I said previously, is getting the portal. The whole other step is populating it, and how we actually start to publish and release our data. I have a few more questions about the eServices portal in that I think we've got some of the low-hanging fruit in fishing licences, the DVM, which is already online, kind of moving that into one place. I believe there are going to be healthcare cards, marriage certificates; some basic information was in there.

Ultimately, what I would really like is this information shared services to direct departments to get all of their applications online into one portal. I'm thinking Housing Corporation, Income Assistance, the kinds of social services programs where we are constantly having to go bring people into offices, and I know my constituency assistants are filling out forms all the time. I guess that work is much harder, but I think it is much more valuable for the kind of work, if you can get that onto an eServices portal. Can the Minister speak to how this ultimately could expand to get other departments to have online applications for their services? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also think that, frankly, eServices and the work of ISSS is perhaps under-highlighted. It is not by accident that the chief information officer is with us today. The Member is right, that the first couple of bundles do include, for example, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Services, fishing licenses, healthcare cards, applications and renewals of some of the vital statistics items, so those are examples of the first two rounds of items that are going to be coming.

As for the rest, Mr. Wind has already mentioned the working group that will be existing that is cross-departmental, meant to be exactly that, to start looking at information that is required and utilized across departments, so that it will be a whole-of-government approach and one that really does look, again, across all the departments. I don't know that the Department of Finance gets to direct anybody to do anything per se, but again, by having that departmental working group and highlighting the importance of the work here, I think that we will be ultimately achieving the goal that is being sought. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I wish that perhaps the chief information officer could direct people or the Department of Finance could direct departments. I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here about digital government. Essentially, there are governments where all of your information is stored in one area, and you log on to fill out an income assistance form, and all of the government data that it is already holding populates the form automatically. Actually, some of those governments have policies that they can never ask you for a piece of information twice. They can never ask you what your birth date is on a second form, once you have given it and put it into a portal. I don't know how often I am helping constituents duplicate and fill out forms for seven different departments over seven different areas. Other governments have figured this out. They have figured out how to do this in eServices portals. I recognize it takes time and money to get it done, but the cost savings are immense to governments. The headaches are saved. My question for the Minister is: Is there a way to kick some of this eServices work up to the Cabinet table and give authority to kind of centralize this and really get it moving? Because I think there is nothing but opportunity here. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Did you have any follow-up comments, Minister?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Only to acknowledge that this isn't in the priority document that we came up with as a government or as a collective 19 Members, but certainly all of us have to assist constituents. Those of us in Cabinet have to receive the requests from constituents, so the challenges being discussed or presented by the Member are not lost, I don't think, on anyone here, and they are certainly not lost on me. As I said, I also agree that the eServices work is very exciting and, yes, it was not by accident that I wanted to make sure that we had the chief information officer here because I do think it's important to have this dialogue and this conversation. That's the kind of thing that will help advance the work. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Are there any further questions under the information system shared services from Members? Seeing no further questions, please turn to page 148, Finance, information system shared services, operations expenditure summary, 2021-2022 Main Estimates, $22,883,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. We will now move into management board secretariat, beginning on page 150, with information items on page 154. I am just going to remind Members that we are going to be having a hard stop at six o'clock, so get your questions and answers to the point, shorten them just to the point. Thank you. Questions to the management board secretariat from Members? Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Two of the line items in here under the grants section are the aviation sector support and the wage top-up, both of which were very well received from the business community. I know that they were both received as contributions from the federal government, and I am wondering if the Department of Finance is talking with the federal government to continue that, given that, one, aviation isn't going to continue, and two, for the wage top-up, the wages that people are receiving, topping them up to $18 an hour is a bare minimum of something that we need to be doing in the Northwest Territories and something that would be wonderful to be able to continue for the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.

Madam Chair, you said short questions. The short answer is, yes, we are continuing the conversations with Transport Canada around the aviation sector support. I don't have anything more to say yet, other than just that. We are working on, indeed, a third phase that would, I hope, be similar in nature to a partnership in terms of Transport Canada and the GNWT providing supports. With respect to the cost of living and the wage top-up specifically, that is still ongoing right now. Those funds have not been exhausted. As for the specific timeline over which that will be unfolded, I don't have an update offhand, but I can certainly provide committee with an update as to where those funds are at. Any longer-term changes to wages and wage top-ups would probably go over to ECE. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll be sure to ask the Minister some of those questions tomorrow. As far as the Mackenzie Valley fibre link and the cost of Internet, the Department of Finance, in my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, sets the wholesale rate for Internet throughout the Northwest Territories using the infrastructure, and then companies come in and add on a retail rate for that. Something we hear about quite often from our constituents is the cost of Internet and the service that is provided. I'm wondering if the GNWT is, at all, discussing the wholesale rate and how they can work with Internet service providers to reduce the cost of Internet throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Internet service providers and Internet rates are quite heavily regulated in the Northwest Territories by CRTC. Certainly, we do have, at the Department of Finance, ongoing discussions with the major players in the industry here, but as I say, a lot of that is going to depend on the work that is being done with CRTC and not with GNWT specifically. Thank you, Madam Chair.