Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think one of the side effects of this pandemic is that we took a hard look at what medical travel was necessary. I know there has been work in the past for the department to sometimes avoid appointments in Edmonton where it's simply a pre-surgery consultation that takes an hour, and then that person flies back. I know the department spoke earlier about a couple of great initiatives happening in terms of Telehealth and digital health. I am concerned that I am seeing $2 million here, and I am seeing continued driving costs for medical travel. When can we expect some...

Thank you, Madam Chair. That makes sense. I always forget amortization is found in the O and M budget, so that is where that $55 million came from. Do we have an estimate of what it costs us to maintain a highway per kilometre? I recognize that is not an easy figure and that it varies depending on the highway and it varies depending on whether it's an ice road, but I am wondering if we, in some of our highways reporting, have a rough estimate of what we spend per year to maintain our highways based on kilometres or some sort of distance metric. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just end with a comment in that I think we are a very unique jurisdiction in that half our population automatically falls under NIHB, and then the largest employer in the territory is the GNWT and their dependents. We end up extending health benefits to numerous other people. We end up with these 2,200 working poor who don't get health benefits. If you did this analysis, I imagine any other jurisdiction except, perhaps, Nunavut, it just wouldn't be feasible to provide everyone benefits with such a small amount of money. I just would encourage the Minister, during...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just reiterate my previous comment. I think that there is $32 million being spent here, and a hard look needs to be taken at it and then updating that policy. Can I get an explanation for the $5 million increase to highway operations, what that is going to accomplish? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My understanding is that there is some talk about including the Metis Health Benefits or the federal government providing funding and rolling that up into the current benefits provided to Indigenous peoples. Can I just get an update of whether the federal government has made any progress on that or any information the department may have? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand we have added the ECE and Child and Family Services leasing. I am not opposed to adding. When we need space, we need it. What I am trying to understand is: on page 251, we spend $32 million on leases, but on 263, we spend $12 million on leases. I just would like to understand the difference between those two numbers. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know there has been discussion previously in this House and in the department about the possibility of providing supplementary health benefits to those who are without. That would be people who don't already have them through their employer, who are not covered under the medical Metis benefits here or the federal Indigenous benefits. Do we have a recent figure of how many people that would be? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am looking at page 251, and we spend $32 million a year on leases. If I go to the information item on 263, lease commitments, it's $12,124,000. Can I just get clarification of the difference between those numbers? I want to understand: how much a year are we spending on leases? Is it $32 million a year or $12 million? Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm happy to receive that timeline, and I look forward to this portal. My question is: do we have an idea of what sort of information we expect to initially populate our open data portal?

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will leave this for another time, but it's my view that being the anchor tenant in a bunch of southern REITs' buildings makes absolutely no sense. It does not align with supporting northern businesses, and if we are actually paying above what it would cost for us, we are spending extra money instead of owning the infrastructure. Either we should build it as a government or find actual northern landlords to give that money to, would be my preference. I will leave that as a comment, and I thank the department for their comments on that.

In the area of asset...