Yes. I'd be -- Mr. Chair, to be fair, the Member's asking a bit more detail than that and to be clear, so with respect to the benefit to employees, it's part of the collective agreement. We're expected to comply with our obligations under the collective agreement. But as I noted, it's a trend that we're seeing in medical travel and health and social services as well. And so, yes, absolutely, there is work underway between the Department of Health and Social Services and Finance to find a path forward on medical travel generally, the types of appointments, where people are going, the repeat appointments, nature of the appointments, the length of the appointments. And given what I have said here about dental services, that is definitely at the top of the list of things that there needs to be a better path forward on. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, like, I know it's a coming page but with the medical travel increases in the health department, it's $13,616,000. So this is a -- inclusive of both of those numbers, is this driven by that 450 percent in dental, like the majority of this funding? And before I turn it over to the Minister, I just want to point out that I think the clock started late for me. So I might be owed a few minutes, but I'm happy to go on the list again if I run out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, I'm going to the Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is certainly some nuances that are different as between the two. I mean, we also look at the number of public servants and if there's obviously an increase in public servants, that can also drive it. There's cost of airfares that have increased. Again, some expectations of getting back to having more regular dental clinics and clinicians in communities and just things that are not unfolding as we would have predicted or hoped. But, you know, yes, to some degree the dental costs are driving both with those nuances considered. So, again, that's where I say I think that's -- it's -- the good news is that with two years of this now, we can certainly look at it and say we need to find a better solution, and that might be some low hanging fruit. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Go to the Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, there's -- again, this portion is really an obligation under the collective agreement. Other companies and businesses, corporations, you know, the mineral resource sector, a lot of those companies, a whole host of companies in town, other levels of government, in general also provide benefits to their employees. The degree to which they're getting benefits, the type of benefits, I'm not privy to. Whether those individuals might have partial payment through public medical travel and then offset by others, again there's going to be some complex differences. But to kind of compare it simply to the general public, I would shy away from that. This is an obligation under the collective agreement to ensure that we have a public service that's getting benefits that align with other employers to make sure that we are a competitive employer, to make sure that we can recruit and retain employees. That's what this one is. And I have no doubt that I'll get some more questions when we hit the health and social services sector. Thank you.

Thank you. Just to the Member, I added two minutes and 30 seconds. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.

And I'm eternally grateful, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, does the Minister anticipate the total costs for medical travel to decrease after September 1st when the extended health benefits are changed? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister Wawzonek.

Mr. Chair, that is not an analysis that I necessarily have in front of me with respect to this supplementary appropriation. I'm happy to take that question away and have our folks in Finance give it some thought. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Range Lake.

Much appreciated. No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To the Member from YK North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I wanted to start first with just noting that this overall request of $26 million for this item is the highest second only to wildfire-related expenses, so I think it's significant. The $18 million supplementary that's requested for payment on our debt, I appreciate the explanation given earlier by the Minister as to why costs have gone up. Can the Minister give some perspective as to how much of an increase this is over what we had budgeted to be spent on paying interest on debt or paying off debt? So how much is the $18 million adding to in terms of how much we're paying on our debt-related expenditures this fiscal year?

Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I can certainly say the budgeted amount, first under the Deh Cho Bridge, was $9,021,000. The bond we have it's projected -- predicted to be $2 million. And short-term debt is $6.141 million. So that's the budget. And, of course, we're now asking for $18 million more so you can do probably some fairly simple math on that one. The biggest single impact here is coming from short-term debt where we're now projecting that that's going to hit a $20 million interest rate -- or a level of interest required. So, again, that's the one where there's been some significant number of items that are being carried by short-term debt. And I went through a number of them before, so I won't repeat them. I'll pause and see if there's another question on it. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate that I'm putting the Minister on the spot here, but would the Minister be able to comment on -- like, is this the most that we've been spending on debt historically? You know, like, just to put this in historical perspective, is this significant that the amount that we've paid on debt-related expenditures over the past year?

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I can say, you know, probably, but that's again, as I said, not really the kind of answer I would like to give to the House or to inform the public. Our debt levels certainly are high. When we capped the capital estimates two fiscals ago, that significantly impacted the growth on the debt but then the sheer volume of impacts over this last summer has sort of undercut that otherwise positive story in that our short-term -- that was capping the total anticipated -- or projections of what we would need in terms of debt to fund capital, but then we had these huge increases unexpectedly over the summer increases the short-term. That's kind of like having like a -- you know -- yes, it's the short term that's really showing the significant growth. So I can quite easily, I think, go back and confirm that this is the single biggest number, but I just want to go back and confirm that. I know -- sorry, and I should also just remember that whenever interest rates have gone up -- and they've been high now longer than, again, the economists seem to be saying they will be. That obviously impacts us as well. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from YK North.