Rylund Johnson

Thank you. You know, I think we started the DIIMS project about a decade ago. Can I just confirm if everybody is now on DIIMS? Thank you.

I've got some more rabies questions, Mr. Speaker. So once we move on to wildlife, we get to pets. And dogs is actually the number one way that humans can contract rabies. In many jurisdictions, it's actually required that all dog owners have uptodate vaccinations for their dogs for the rabies. That is not currently the case in the Northwest Territories. So my question for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs is whether he will consider mandating that every pet owner, every dog owner make sure that their dog has the rabies vaccine. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And then I guess there is, you know, there is to me, there's the goal of reporting on the quality and condition and all the work that we're doing with all the assets everywhere that we own, the multibillion dollars worth, and then I'm wondering if the dashboard would speak to kind of tracking ongoing infrastructure projects or whether that would be another initiative. What I picture is, you know, we often pass these capital estimates and they and some community says they're going to get a small local project done and then it gets carried over and carried over and it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first set of questions is for ENR. I'm going to start with the foxes, Mr. Speaker. That's where the rabies are most present, and then they get into dogs, and then they get into humans. So can the Minister of ENR just tell us whether the department is presently concerned with their rabies outbreak in the current fox Arctic Fox population. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I promise I'm only going to try and only talk for about ten minutes this whole main estimates review, and all of it's going to be about asset management. And I know this section's called asset management but I guess more in regards to all of the assets in the department.

Last earlier in this session, the Minister gave an update on road construction and she said there was, you know, $45 million improving our highways and bridges and 160 kilometres of chip seal. And as she was giving that statement, I tried to look through previous, you know, main estimates and the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories, unfortunately, is having a banner year for rabies and, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, last year was also a banner year for rabies. And there's a couple of reasons for this. One is it's cyclical in the Arctic fox population so it tends to spike. The other reason is that with changes in climate and warmer weather, rabies outbreaks are becoming more and more common. And, Mr. Speaker, it's worth noting that rabies is one of those public health campaigns of the 20th century that we largely solved. There are still 60,000 human deaths a year from rabies...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Northwest Territories create a law that requires all carbon tax revenues to be rebated to households, business community, businesses, community governments, Indigenous governments, and nongovernmental organizations.

And further, in creating this law, the government should consider how rebates to each group will work and whether the carbon tax system should be revenue neutral.

And furthermore, this law should also require a separate accounting and annual reporting. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And furthermore, that each recommendation, NTPC and the department should indicate whether it agreed its work plan for implementation and its progress towards implementation. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I move that this Assembly call on the federal government to better recognize the specific needs and circumstances of the Northwest Territories in its climate change approach. These specific needs include significantly more funding to make renewable energy options accessible and affordable for all Northerners;

Further, committee recommends that the Premier of the Northwest Territories convey this motion without delay to the Prime Minister of Canada with a letter requesting a reply.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I recognize each one's unique. And one of my favourite unique ones is actually not Northview, it's Northern United Place. We signed a longterm lease with Northern United Place. It's allowed them to provide multiple units of discounted housing for vulnerable people for decades. And we were actually willing to pay a little more for that longterm lease knowing that it would be kind of a combined commercial and residential that would house some people. I think it's kind of a great model, and we never did it again for some reason. But I guess in the form of some...