Rylund Johnson

This gets to my entire point, Madam Chair. I'm looking at a capital budget, which the Housing Corporation goes and creates, which is undeniably based on how much it has to pay the authorities, how many staff the authorities have, how much staff it has, because it all comes out of one other O and M budget. Perhaps the Minister can look into that and come back with options of corporate restructuring. How many public housing units do we have in Yellowknife, and what is the current wait list in wait list in Yellowknife, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister is also the Minister responsible for Homelessness. Perhaps a bad name, Minister responsible for ending homelessness is the goal here. You have no staff presently for that title. You just have an arms-length corporation. Is the Minister willing to look into getting herself some staff for ending homelessness?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want the Minister to caution that they are not two departments: one is an arms-length corporation; the other is a department. Is the Minister willing to have a conversation with the Premier and bring back some options to Regular Members on corporate restructuring for how we fund housing in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think that was a yes. I'm glad to hear that, and I'm glad to hear we are working with our Indigenous governments. Really, at the end of the day, what I am looking for is to give the vast majority of the land in Yellowknife North back to the Akaitcho and to keep a few leases in fee simple where my residents currently live. Can the Minister write to Akaitcho on what they would require to agree to land disposition of those leases?

Thomas Friedman writes, "In a world where so many people now have access to education and cheap tools of innovation, innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic but smart. Innovation that happens from the top down tends to be orderly but dumb." Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that, far too often, the GNWT is orderly but dumb, but our entrepreneurs are prime example of bottom-up innovation. Our economic supports must do more to foster that kind of growth. I will have questions for the Minister of ITI how we are making sure our economic recovery is chaotic and smart, as opposed to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I just confirm that? I understand we are going to do the project description report; we are going to do a developers assessment report; and then we are going into environmental assessment. Are we entering environmental assessment just from Highway No. 4 to Lockhart Lake, or are we entering environmental assessment for the entire road, two of the three phases? Can I just get a sense of what we are bringing to the land and water board? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One question which I've always had about Taltson and no one has really been able to explain it to me is: we want to expand our power, but we have some of the most expensive power in Canada. Part of that goal is to then connect maybe to Alberta, maybe to Saskatchewan, and sell that power, but their power is far cheaper than ours. Why has the plan never been to just simply connect to one of those southern jurisdictions and instead of expanding our very expensive and aged infrastructure just get into a power purchasing agreement and buy much cheaper power? There is...

Okay. Well, that's that, I guess. My next question is rather specific: this is the section of the GNWT that does all of our leasing. It controls our building infrastructure. It also is the section of the budget that retrofits our programs. I think we own three large towers in downtown Yellowknife. We rent the other three. We are by far the biggest landlord in Yellowknife. We give all of this money to Northview. We don't dip it. I have a lot of problems with that area, but I only have about 10 seconds left. Can the Department of Infrastructure look into a district heating system for all of the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Understandably, we throw everything in this section from loaders to our technological service centre to power lines, but I'm looking at page 49, the third line down. We have renewable solutions for off-grid diesel. It's federal money, it's estimated to be completed in 2026-2027, so a long way off. How much money is that, and is it renewable diesel? Is that what this money is for? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is just getting to my lack of not really understanding the Fiscal Responsibility Policy and the way things are going. I struggle that we amortize certain assets, and we make sure that we are kind of calculating what the needs assessment is. I get that. It's giant, and it's going to get out of whack. I am wondering if there is a way that the Department of Infrastructure can work with the Department of Finance such that we have a policy where we don't have $11 million in this first priority that comes before us and we're not funding it. To me, it just seems like we...