Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Spruce Bough, formerly the Arnica, is currently operating with getting its funding from a number of sources. They're trying to navigate, being passed around through various CMHC funding proposals as well as getting income assistance from their clients as well as COVID emergency funding that has come from Health and Social Services. So I'm just trying to piece together all of the funding sources to make sure that this building and this transitional housing can continue beyond the life of this pandemic.

So my first question for the Minister of Health and Social...

No further questions, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I am happy to see what appears to be the end of the saga of the Norman Wells health centre. We are settling for nearly for $4,750,000. I don't even know where to get with this one. Do we have some lessons learned for the Norman Wells health centre; specifically, what caused the delays? I know there was a bit of a debate about how many change orders the GNWT was responsible for but I'm just trying to figure out how we make sure we don't see settlements in our infrastructure budgets again for $5 million. So there's some lessons to be learned out of the Norman...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I struggle sometimes to understand the whole information system shared services and the IT world, but I also struggle to understand why it moves so slowly sometimes. I guess I'd like to narrow in a little here on the Mineral Administration Registry system, the MARS system. My understanding is that the $1.2 million carried over here is actually total of something about 4.5 million for our new mineral registry system. Can I get an update on when that will be complete and, more specifically, when we will have online MAP staking in the NWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to not comment on the caribou issue here. I guess  or stepping back, you know, I think in our operations budget, we still have a bit of a problem with departments in March madness and then with our Infrastructure budgets, we seem to have an obvious problem where we can't get money out the door and we see these quite a large carryovers. And I guess, I don't want to get too much into the details, but there's $70,000 for a patrol vehicle here. How do we not manage to buy a vehicle with any  and why does something like that have to go all the way back up to the...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Could we just get some more information on what the deferred maintenance projects that weren't completed were and why. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I think there are some lessons to be learned here, and perhaps some lobbying to be done by our Housing Corp on the CMHC's processes. And I've even heard that the CMHC ministers complain about some of their processes not working for the North in the past. It's a lot of the reason that the coinvestment money sat there in the first place.

In the Spruce Bough's example, there doesn't currently seem to be a path forward where they can meet the CMHC building standards for green energy and retrofitting despite the fact that people are living there and it's working right now, this ...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corp regarding the Spruce Bough. There's been a number of different applications throughout this. I believe that the Housing Corp is committed to a part of the coinvestment fund and then the Spruce Bough was moved into the rapid rehousing money, and then they were not successful there. And now I believe they are back in the coinvestment fund with CMHC and the Housing Corp is still supporting their 25 percent of that. But can I just get an update from the Minister on where the Spruce Bough is at with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know there has been a couple of delays at getting the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre in Hay River operating, and I'm excited for its opening using the therapeutic model. And I know there's even some concerns about the perimeter fence, which I see it here, for $135,000 meeting the security requirements. But I guess my question is when do we expect that facility to be open?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I guess that September 30th date is the date I'm worried about, is that it requires, you know, the staff to know whether they continue to have jobs and the residents to continue to know whether they have homes. Can the Minister speak to what needs to happen to extend funding beyond September 30th? I really would like to walk out of this pandemic with some longterm funding for those people in transitional housing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.