Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment who I know has plans to bring forward the Education Act, and as part of that, my question is: would he show support for students and allow them to vote in their school board elections at age 16? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I got a bit of a win from the Minister of ECE about looking into lowering the voting age for the Education Act, which covers our school boards, but I think this step is also appropriate at the community level. My question is for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Is she willing to support our youth and lower the voting age for municipal elections? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I hoped to also ask questions of the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, so maybe if we change the enumeration there, then, they'll line up. I think the other option here would be to give the school boards the option of whether they want to lower it themselves and let them decide. As part of the Education Act, is the Minister willing to reach out to the DEAs and see if they have any input on lowering the voting age or any of the changes to how they run their elections?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For those of you in this House who grow tired of hearing from me all of the time, I would like to try something different today and read an essay by Raven Mudford, a student at Ecole Sir John Franklin, who has been advocating to lower the voting age.

"Teenagers deserve the right to vote. They deserve the opportunity to have a say in how they enter the world of adulthood. Why, in the context of voting, do we see them as children, but in others 'young adults'? We trust them to enter the workforce, drive cars, take care of children, protest, but not influence their futures...

Thank you. I would encourage the department to get a firm date. I know there are more and more people looking to do their residencies in the North. We actually offer quite a great practice experience for doctors. There are more and more benefits, such as student loan remissions available for doctors willing to come north. Another area in the department's business plan in this section is to increase employee engagement and satisfaction. Part of that work was to do staff surveys of all of the people in the department. Can I get an update on whether that was work we were already doing or when we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As part of the department's business plan under this section, one of our goals was to increase local residency and implement our residency full-time. I always support increasing residency, and I believe the goal is to go from two residencies a year to four. Can I just get an update on when we expect to accomplish that, or whether we already have? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can I have some clarification? My understanding is that, when we passed the initial COVID secretariat supplemental, about half of the money was isolation costs. I understand we have been getting those variance reports; we are $800,000 under budget, meaning we have a surplus. When I look at the numbers here, I assume fees and payments $15 million is mostly the isolation centres. However, now, this fiscal, we are being asked to pass $12 million in fees and payments. Can I get clarification of whether that fees and payments line is the isolation centres? If it is, why is it...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is a lot of work that needs to be done there, and if the department has been providing it in kind or through contract services or just leading the support, perhaps an internal reallocation to actually give them another staff person is long overdue, especially if we are going to meet the business plan goal of lowering that wait list. I wanted to move on to the FASD diagnostic clinic that MLA Cleveland started on. This is another one of those areas. Can I get the total budget of the FASD diagnostic clinic and whether there has been any increase to that? Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are budgeting for a full year and hoping that we do not need a full year. It would be nice if COVID was wrapped up, but a lot of that is beyond our control. Can I just get a sense of what's going to happen, say, if we wrap this up in September, use half a year's fiscal? How do we plan to make sure that the 150-or-so staff in the COVID secretariat do not simply lose their jobs? Will they be transferred back to other positions, or are they on short-term contracts? Can I just get a little update on that, how we are staffing the COVID secretariat in light of it having to...

Thank, Mr. Chair. Yes. I guess that makes sense to me. We are not going to cut off core services anytime, but we have a yearly fund of fires to supplementary appropriation, which can range from $4- to $50 million and have large fluctuations. I think probably there is some room to have that conversation later. However, I wanted to switch to, I believe this is the funding for the Office of the Public Guardian. Can I get a clarification of whether there has been an increase to the Office of the Public Guardian? I note the department has a goal of decreasing the wait list for the number of people...