Rylund Johnson

Yellowknife North

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll have further discussions with the Minister about this. I also believe that the federal government, through its climate change plans, is looking at reforestation as one of the many tools, so I think, looking at the pilot that we're doing and leveraging the money that we currently have set aside through stumpage fees, that there is probably an opportunity to leverage some more federal funding for reforestation efforts. I'll just leave that as a comment.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm trying to get a sense of what we charge industrial users for using water. If someone has a Type A water licence and they're going to be using millions of litres of water, what would we charge them? Where is that set out?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to commend all the people of the Yukon who woke up and will never have to change their clocks ever again. It seems what happens here, there's a bit of a gridlock here where Alberta is looking to doing this once again. BC is, California is, and no one seems to want to move. My question for the Minister of Justice is: can we take the lead and get rid of time change?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I do think that there is actually quite a bit of potential in working with ITI to make sure that we develop our forestry industry, and there's a whole spectrum here, whether it's community wood lots or a person building log cabins, or the large BC forestry companies who have come up and harvested in the past in the Northwest Territories. I would encourage the department, or the Minister of ENR, to work with ITI to see if there is some potential economic growth there. My other question is: do we presently conduct any tree planting, or are there any plans to do any...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that that process will continue, and I look forward to hearing more about piloting it for regulations, too, because there are a number of very important regulations that this department has. I guess my other concern is, in using this process, what happens is there is a very confidential and arduous co-drafting process, and then it comes to committee and, ultimately, through this House. As is the nature of public government, we can change whatever we want. I think that it can lead to some tension and some misunderstanding of who ultimately controls...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you. I assure you I will reach out to the Minister of Finance and give her some more work to do. Sorry. No further questions at this time, Madam Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess my next question, too, is: we as standing committee will be taking the Wildlife Act out on a legislative review; is the Department of ENR willing to provide assistance in that review that will be done by committee?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Listen, I get that I am probably not going to get the Minister of ENR to commit to a legislated target that is enforceable right now in this question period, although that is what I would like to see. A number of researchers have suggested one of the best ways from the Northwest Territories, given the remoteness of our communities and the difficulty of getting off diesel, is simply for us to purchase carbon offsets or to acquire the Power Corporation or other large emitters, industrial people, to purchase carbon offsets, which would then allow us to meet our carbon targets by funding other...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, so I guess I am confused. We have the Traditional Knowledge Policy, and can I get the clarification how this works? We also have a knowledge agenda action plan 2019-2024, which I believe is actually under EIA. Can I get some clarification on how the Traditional Knowledge Policy, the traditional knowledge implementation, and the knowledge agenda action plan work?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 16)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will take that as "when we get a person to staff the position," then we can go from there. I guess my question is: do our air regulations have any plans to regulate the amount of CO2 emissions?