Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is a lot of money being spent here. I'm trying to understand it. The $35 million in utilities on page 251, that would be, essentially, the O and M for the buildings that we own, not the leases? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Does the department have a cost estimate, or has any work been done to get a cost estimate of what it would cost to provide those 2,200 people some form of supplementary health benefits? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just waiting for my light to turn on there. I guess the question I am asking is... [Microphone turned off]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the issues I've struggled with in this work is it kind of seems to be all over government. The open government policy lies with EIA; ATIP implementation, which requires a lot of open disclosure, lies with Justice; the actual records lie with Infrastructure; and the ISSS and the Chief Information Officer lie with Finance. My understanding is that there's a steering committee to kind of coordinate all this work. However, I've never seen any of the work of that steering committee. My question for the Minister is: can there be some public reporting of the open...

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will ask a follow-up question to Finance sometime about what that number is actually looking like and how big of a liability it is to be added to our books. Can I just get clarification of whether asset management is where I would find the deferred maintenance budget, and if so, how much deferred maintenance is in the operations budget? Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think, perhaps, the Minister should also ask the department update her briefing note because I'm going to read from the June transcript where it says by the Minister, "I will have a timeline by the time we are back in the fall as to how exactly this is going to unfold." "Fall" being 2020 there. We're in 2021, Mr. Speaker. My question is: what is the timeline for getting that timeline back to the House?

Thank you, Madam Chair. The current policy allows us to lease buildings off northern-owned landlords if we think we can pay an extra 10 percent on the cost of leasing. I think that is fair, and I don't mind paying a little bit more on leases of northern-owned buildings. I would note that I do not believe that the money we are paying the southern REITs, which is millions and millions of dollars, is actually cheaper than owning the buildings or cheaper than renting off a northern landlord. I question whether we are even in compliance with our leasing of improved real property policy. Can the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Consensus government, at its core, has a transparency problem, and it not an easy problem to solve without all of us in this House making some sacrifices for the public good. In our system, Regular MLAs are awarded a great deal of input into decision making. We see draft budgets, draft business plans, draft budgets, and draft legislative proposals, and we are given ample time to comment and provide input to those draft decisions. In many cases, Mr. Speaker, Cabinet actually listens to Regular MLAs, and I commend them for that. I understand that some Assemblies have done...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Housing Corporation previously conducted some analysis of whether it was cheaper to build public housing or to lease it, and they determined, ultimately, in the long run, it was cheaper for them to build and own their infrastructure. I note that our lease policy requires us to undertake a lease-versus-own analysis of all of the GNWT properties to see whether it's cheaper. In general, does the department have a sense of whether it's cheaper for us to own or lease our buildings? I note we built some very large office towers, such as the new government building, before...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we all look forward to the outcomes of those discussions, so perhaps just a commitment from the Minister that, when we have an answer or a response from the federal government on the Territorial Health Investment Fund going forward, that it will be shared with the appropriate committee. Thank you, Madam Chair.