Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe it was yesterday in the House, the Minister of Justice was talking about integrated service delivery and the goal being to, you know, make government processes designed for the people and not necessarily what is easiest for government. For almost a year now, the Yellowknife department of motor vehicles has not accepted walkin appointments. You have to get an appointment. I've had numerous constituent issues regarding this. So my I believe this is clearly easier for the department to run it that way but not necessarily the public. So my question for the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll start with the one for licensed tourism operators, $2.5 million. I'm glad to see this. I think tourism bailout or assisting our tourism operators is much needed funding. And I'm glad to see the GNWT do this of their own initiative. I think to date, we've been waiting on a lot of federal programs and these are designed to kind of fill some of those gaps. So I'm going to vote in favour of the money. I just had some questions about how it is spent.

Of the $2.5 million for tourism operators, how much of that do we expect to go to northern tourism operators...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps I'll save debate on the cost of ending poverty for another time. I just hope that the funds had some clear aims to be used for that.

There's $591,000 here for the phase 2 of the NWT's midwifery program. Can I just get a confirmation on when we expect those positions to actually be hired. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There's $100,000 to the Child and Family Services contribution here. I believe the word "contribution" clarifies this, but this is not you know, the $40million budget of Child and Family Services, this will be given to the Foster Family Coalition to support foster families through their contribution agreement, is that correct?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess, you know, the first couple bailouts, I get, when their main concern is insolvency and keeping these essential routes open. But we're getting to the point where the government is clearing propping up these airlines, and I think some larger conversations have to happen about whether we're just going to keep pouring money into them without getting a seat at the shareholder table. And that was very much the Minister of Finance federally's point in taking six percent of Air Canada as part of their bailout, to make sure that they're at the shareholder table and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. How much have we given Canadian North to date? And including this top up here. Thank you.

No, I guess we'll just have to top it up again. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Costs, irate clients, union barriers, that could have been an answer to pretty much the reason why we can't do anything in this Assembly, Mr. Speaker. I guess I would like to speak to costs.

Right now the DMV is not even open 9 to 5. It closes at 4o'clock or 4:30, depending. Is there a possibility where we actually reduce the weekday hours to be open parttime on weekends? I think we could actually reduce the overall hours, or give some people a window outside of that time, and maybe we can go we have a new Collective Agreement coming out, maybe there's some sort of...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess just stepping back, a number of jurisdictions have provided rebates for staycations where if you go on, you know, a staycation in the territory, you send in your receipts and the government gives you a 20 percent or some percent rebate. And the reason I like this model is it encourages tourism within the territory; it encourages, you know, some competition to still remain in the market so that we're not just subsidizing people who have essentially shuttered their doors to a breakeven point. It allows operators to actually exist with some revenue. And I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I'll save some of my questions for Dr. Kandola when we can reopen the Yellowknife DMV.

During COVID, the DMV was completely closed for a period. But they were actually offered more and more services online and some of the traditional inperson services were being done by email. I guess my question to the Minister of Infrastructure is what is preventing all services from being offered online? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.