Rylund Johnson

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm following up on a commitment from the Minister of Finance who is responsible for the Chief Information Officer of a commitment to have an open government portal for the GNWT. My question is: when can we expect to see that open government portal? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Where I am going with this is that the GNWT is the anchor tenant in most of Northview's building. It's in downtown Yellowknife. My understanding is that we built a new government building because we understood it was cheaper for us to own our buildings as opposed to leasing them from large southern REITs. My question is specific to class A commercial office spaces. Is it cheaper for us to own it than it is to lease it right now at market rates in Yellowknife? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, I have canvassed this with a few mayors and a few communities, and I think there is a mixed response. I think one of the solutions there is just simply give our municipalities more control over their elections and more control over residency requirements, age requirements, or how they want to run their own elections. As part of bringing this forward to the NWTAC, and I'm happy to hear that from the Minister, can the Minister also bring forward lowering the voting age to 16 or at least giving municipalities an option to make that choice themselves?

No further questions, Mr. Speaker.