Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. Beginning with a general question: can the Minister of Finance provide the total cost of our debt servicing in these main estimates? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, I understand. We are paying $33 million a year. A percentage of that goes to principal, and a percentage of that goes to interest. Perhaps the Minister can commit to breaking down that further. I am just looking for some simple numbers I can repeat so I understand how much it costs us to keep borrowing this amount of money. Is that possible?

I recognize, perhaps, the Minister can't commit to developing a piece of legislation right now, but to pretend like this hasn't been happening for years; I've read a statement today from my predecessor's predecessor in 2011 requesting this. The department has the information. This involves the Housing Corporation. It involves the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, and the expertise lies in Infrastructure. What I am looking for from the Minister of Infrastructure is to reach out to all the relevant parties, all the professionals, and get back to the committee with a plan on how we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I guess I'm looking for a breakdown when I look at the Main Estimates 2019-2020, and then they were revised to be lower, and what the cause in that $11 million drop is, and if that was due largely to lack of cannabis sales.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today, my Members' statement was on the building standards act. In our mandate, we are committed to implementing the 2030 Energy Strategy, something that I am very excited about, Mr. Speaker. Object 5 of the 2030 Energy Strategy is to increase residential, commercial, and government buildings' energy efficiency, by 15 percent. My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure: will the implementation of the action plan for the 2030 Energy Strategy include developing a building standards act such that we can ensure that those buildings meet that 15-percent target...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's clear I'm not going to get a commitment out of you, but once again I find myself, here I am, passing $1 million to an Internal Audit Bureau, and I have no idea what they do. I have no ability to ever see any reports that they produce. I have no ability to know if they're good work, and I guess that troubles me. I think that it's a larger issue of, simply, if we are auditing ourselves, why is that not public information? I'll leave that as a comment, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We need to establish territory-wide building standards to meet the cost of climate changes today. While the standards of the national Modern Energy Building Code are required, there are no assurances that these standards are met due to the lack of small-community inspections and enforcement systems.

Project management capacity at the community level is also a concern, Mr. Speaker. For example, there is no guarantee that a new community building won't be sited on permafrost for lack of a geotechnical survey. This raises major concerns. Public safety can be put at risk...

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is to the just over $1 million we spend on the Internal Audit Bureau, something that I think sounds great. Are any of the audits conducted by the Internal Audit Bureau public?

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of my issues in going through these main estimates is that there is essentially a lack of detail in all of them, and I don't want to ask the department and the Minister to break down every single item. One of the issues that I have found previously is that contract services can include everything from photocopiers to some payment of some consultant. Can I get a breakdown of what the $2,600,000 in Information Systems Shared Services contract services is?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to switch here to the Affirmative Action Policy. Does the department have any plans to update the Affirmative Action Policy?