Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I spoke in my statement today how I think cabins are really a bellwether for how settling land claims are going and, you know, we've seen a number of court cases over the years. I think one of the main problems is that if you have a if you're an Indigenous person and you're using a cabin for rightsbased purposes, you're treated just like anyone else. You have to get the same leases, pay the same taxes, and follow all the same conditions.

So I'm wondering if the Premier will work to create some sort of different tenure for those rightsbased cabins, to put them in a...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do not believe that this territory can move forward on settling land claims without first sorting out the issues of rightsbased cabins. And, Madam Speaker, this is a bit of a catch-22 in that the cleanest solution to settling rightsbased cabins is settling land claims, because once an Indigenous government has their land and their cabins are on it then they can sort that out with their membership. Yet, Madam Speaker, we have heard time and time again, in many meetings with Indigenous governments, on no matter what the subject, quite often it comes back around to...

No, just I hope we can find some creative ways to, you know, slowly diversify the way we are leasing and, you know, work with some smaller landlords. I don't even think it's you know, there's some fourplexes in town I think we could probably try and lease. And, you know, if you get something like a fourplex with separate entrances, you're not going to have people selling crack in the hallways and, you know, you're not going to need security. So I think with some creativity, we can diversify this. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I get an updated figure of the total amount of money we owe CMHC? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, we don't use income testing for anything in public healthcare. And if you show up to the doctor, it doesn't matter how much money you make; you get services provided if you are sick. And that is exactly what we were trying to do with people who had these specified disease conditions. And my concern, Mr. Speaker, is we're now asking people to go out and try and find third-party insurance when they have diseases which makes it very difficult to get third-party insurance. We're asking people to put their coverage at risk, and it is causing them a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it was quite clear in that public engagement that lots of people were very concerned about the proposal to remove the specified conditions. Can the Minister confirm whether the plan is to draft that new policy that will, in fact, remove those specified conditions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last fall, the Department of Health and Social Services went out to consult on their extended health benefits policy. And on first glance, it seemed that the plan was to expand coverage and means test it, something I had no opposition to. But upon a closer reading, it was clear that that plan was to do that at the expense of the specified disease conditions in the schedule to that policy, Mr. Speaker; something I do oppose.

And, Mr. Speaker, so the department tabled their “what we heard” report and in that report, it was pretty clear that there was support for expanding...

Yeah, and, you know, I think there's a different argument to be made, whether you want to, well, get a mortgage for a house in nonmarket community but, to me, if we're going to build a new building in Yellowknife, you know, where it's clear that that asset is mortgageable, it has a value, that would make sense. I guess I'll just leave that as a comment that perhaps, you know, at the housing corp, going forward when it tries to get money out of Cabinet, it might not get money but perhaps it could just ask for debt because that would work too. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, and just a comment on that. I think there's probably some room for well, I'll say cooperation. I would rather perhaps some just straight direction from the housing corp speaking to the Yellowknife housing corp. They go off and do oneoff contracts and giving the example of, you know, they'll renovate a couple bathrooms in some units because there was some water damage and perhaps it's better, you know, for the housing corp to go okay, well, why don't we do, you know, 400 units at once and replace 400 units for taps as opposed to just random orders all across the territory...

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I know we're always talking about CMHC and we're always trying to get them to up our operation and funding and kind of pause 2038 but I think probably a good strategy, try and lobby that they just forgive us this money. That sure would be nice.

I'm looking here at contract services now. The budget line item I see has gone up approximately $500,000. Can I just get a summary of what that $1.7 million for contract services is and the reason for the increase? Thank you.