Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think over time, we come to speak of different departments as if they were living and breathing persons with their own personalities and their quirks and their faults. I often talk about the Department of Lands still operating as if it was a department of the federal government and that devolution is not really completed.

Mr. Speaker, we talked about Justice as if it's a bunch of lawyers and they have this really small kind of world view and are very risk adverse. And Mr. Speaker, often when we talk about the Department of MACA, we talk about their inability to get...

Thank you, Madam Chair. When North Slave Correctional was built, I believe they call it a smudging room, but it was a room with kind of a healing circle in it, and then the Office of the Fire Marshal said that despite the architects and engineers signing off, that we were not allowed to use it. And I believe there was some capital money spent to perhaps get it open again. Can I just have an update on that? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess perhaps I'll have some more questions during the operations budget on the programming. Can the Minister give us an update of the current capacity of our correctional facilities and whether that's in percentage or number of spaces that are being used. I'll note, you know, we're a very small jurisdiction, and we have three prisons or, you know, five, I guess, if you count women's and youth, depending exactly how you count the facilities. How full are they, and just some justification for having so many prisons in such [Audio] territory. Thank you, Madam...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I don't have a lot of issue with what is being proposed here, but I do have some general questions about the state of our Corrections infrastructure and see whether I can keep this within scope.

Specifically at North Slave, I note that the youth facility has very, very low "attendance" I think is not quite the right word. We don't put a lot of youth in jail anymore and we have a beautiful facility over there. I'm just wondering if the department is looking at reusing that or can share some insights on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know in this last year we ripped up the road that kind of connects our services to the rest of this city and during that there was some engineering work about possibility of working with the museum and the Department of National Defence and RCMP and the city about some sort of district heating system. I note that that's probably now passed since we completed that work. But can I just get an update on whether that is feasible or whether that is in the future Assembly capital plan? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know what, I'm hopeful we're going to see the Property Assessment and Taxation Act. The MLA from Frame Lake often remarks that when he was on council in 1997, he asked for that act to be brought forward. And a lot has happened in the intervening 24 years except amendments to the Property Assessment and Taxation Act.

Mr. Speaker, presently the ontheland implementation unit has nine funded staff to bring one act in into force. The ontheland policy shop there is actually the largest policy shop in the GNWT for one act, yet MACA with 21 acts does not have nine policy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first question for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs is does the department have a backlog of legislation?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I think we are all happy to see that both crime rates and incarceration have been going down in a rather predictable rate, which is why we have such low capacity in our prisons. But I guess at one point, I think we have to re-evaluate, you know, running a bunch of facilities with very low numbers, and even whether it's beneficial to inmates to have four, you know, members in a 23-person facility, whether it's better to have larger populations where there's a economy of scale for delivering programming programs. Is the department doing that work, to reevaluate...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, and I guess, you know, I've when there's one youth inmate in there, it's almost like, I know it's a nice facility but it's almost a backwards way of being in solitary confinement in a giant facility. Andand you know, we're certainly not going to offer very elaborate programming for one to two offenders. Can I just get the Minister to elaborate on that point, that it's not feasible to send them to Whitehorse or Edmonton. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I have some reservations about this line item. You know, on one hand I am a huge fan of pedestrian infrastructure, and I think the more we can do to encourage people to walk and cycle the better. On the other hand, I this is, you know, a few hundred meters of trail for $400,000. I'm struggling to see it as a bit of a priority. I'd like to hear from the Speaker about is this just the reality of what a trail costs to construct these days, $400,000, or do we have some reasoning how we got to such a high number? Thank you.