Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess what I would ideally like to see, and I know there are competing interests, here, and different fishers have different things, is that perhaps this $9-million fish processing plant is not just in Hay River and the various remote collection stations are stationed around the lake, and perhaps we're breaking up this $9 million into smaller projects that actually make sure that the lake is evenly fished. I don't know if, in passing this specific line item, whether that's possible, and I would like to get a sense from the Minister of, going forward on this project...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm always happy to hear when things are 75-percent funded. This is one of the line items I have a bit of an issue with in that I'm always hesitant to approve something when we don't exactly know what it's going to be. I know there is some work to go out and adjust and see if we can get this back on budget, but I've spoken to a number of fishers, both on this side of the lake and in Hay River, who say this isn't exactly what they're looking for. I also know, with the passing of Stacy Linington, we have lost a significant amount of our previous fishing capacity and, you...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also see the $1.1 million for the Enterprise licensing and permitting. My understanding is that that budget line is to bring most, if not all, of our licensing and permits online into one system. Can I just, perhaps, have a bit of a distinction between SIMS and Enterprise? Is one for the DMV and one for other licensing? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that, on Friday, June 12, 2020, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that, notwithstanding rule 4, when this House adjourns on Friday, June 12, 2020, it shall be adjourned until Thursday, October 15, 2020; and further, that any time prior to October 15, 2020, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment or at a time later than...

I look forward to continuing those conversations regarding business planning. I believe that the Minister could put forward quite a compelling case that every dollar we spend in alternative measures actually saves us money because it is simply extremely costly to bring people to trial and to hold them in prisons. If we can avoid doing that, it ultimately saves us money, and I believe there are numerous studies showing that.

Mr. Speaker, our MP, Michael McLeod, has been quite a vocal advocate for increasing First Nations policing funding. In this current budget, we passed $47 million to fund the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Justice. I believe there is much work to be done in reforming our criminal justice system. One of the places that is easy to start is the increasing use of alternative measures; that is, not necessarily going through the court system and sentencing people to jail sentences but using healing circles and all sorts of other alternative measures. My question for the Minister of Justice is: during this life of this Assembly, will we increase the use of alternative measures?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to speak to revising the Business Incentive Policy.

The GNWT spends over $260 million annually on products and services. The GNWT alone can be a primary driver of economic recovery in the NWT through purchasing power. The purpose of the Business Incentive Policy is to give preference to businesses that are owned and operated within the NWT. It is designed to promote economic growth and capacity within NWT businesses and the economy. Yet Members hear from constituents territory-wide of the challenges accessing government procurement opportunities.

Members...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I am in a bit of a hard spot, then. I don't want to vote against this $9 million for the plant in Hay River, but I am very concerned that we actually haven't developed the fishing capacity around the lake to actually meet the demands of the plant that we are planning to build. I think we probably need a few more dollars put into remote collection stations and probably more money put into the infrastructure of individual fishers. I have talked to every single fisher, and they are just struggling to make a profit, let alone fish enough to use this plant that we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. My other understanding of this project is that I recognize we need more fish processing capacity, but by putting it in Hay River you really severely limit a fisher's ability and you end up over-fishing a part of the lake because they simply have to travel to Hay River. Where the second part of this line item comes in, the $500,000 for Great Slave Lake commercial fishery remote collection stations, and I recognize that this is largely an ITI issue and very specific, but can I get a sense of where we are expected to install remote collection stations? Thank you, Madam...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have no doubt that almost every Member in this House would say they are committed to a more open and transparent government. However, I think there is a bit of disconnect in that open and transparent government doesn't happen without clear intention in changing the systems we operate in. Every single jurisdiction in Canada, except ours and Nunavut, has an open data portal, a place where you go to get all of the departments' data in one place. Right now, this is scattered across various GNWT websites in various different forms. My question for the Minister of Finance...