Rylund Johnson

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try again once more. Okay, perhaps we have to wait for the new policy that answers, you know, some of these companies and I get it's difficult to say if your base of operations are here but you've sold since been sold, should you fall under the new policy. But to me the answer to that is the new policy. So I don't want to see a situation where we create a new policy and then we keep Schedule 3. So we go well, we're just going to leave those people there forever.

So will the Minister commit that once we have a new policy in place, we will be removing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In Schedule 3 of the business incentive policy is quite a long list of companies, and I don't want to go through the reasons of why each of these got in here or others that, you know, seemingly have the exact same situation in this territory didn't. But can the Minister just give me some explanation of how we got here; why is there a specified list of southern companies that we give preferential treatment to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, I guess I'm curious as to why that you know, I get that they're agencies but some of them are, in fact, registered nonprofit societies and fit under federal grant applications and most certainly would be able to go get money. And, you know, the money from the feds might be something as simple as some training for staff, energy retrofits, or building housing. It just seems having another group apply for money of their own initiatives has zero downside. I get we might want to keep a bit of an eye on making sure they're not just building assets with, you know, without the maintenance...

Yeah, thank you. Is that something we are considering revisiting? I know, for example, the City of Yellowknife just bought an apartment building and is looking for someone to manage it. You know, the Yellowknife Housing Authority already manages hundreds of units. It probably would not be that much of an incremental cost to them to manage another unit. Are we willing to let any LHOs explore the possibility of managing other people's assets? I'll note that argument probably goes just as well for Indigenous governments who are looking to build their open housing but probably don't want to get...

It seems like there should be some way for the housing corp to get that off their books and have it treated like all the other GNWT assets. You know, it just seems odd that we're paying ourselves tax. But I'll leave that as a comment.

I did have a couple questions about the scope of authority of LHOs. I guess I'll start with, do any of our LHOs own any assets, whether that be housing or the offices they work in or anything at all? Thank you.

Yes, I guess I'll start with a comment that it would be helpful I know that this is a finance template to include those positions. I know every time we go through this you get lots of questions about where jobs are in communities. And if any of these jobs move in the Housing Corp positions in the community, we talk about it but clearly the majority of staff are in LHOs. So I think some transparency there would be helpful for everyone. But I'll leave that as a comment.

My other question is I see under community housing services, there's $2 million approximately in property taxes and land...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, you know, and I think this is a tough policy question. There has to be a way to write it because take Walmart, for example, one of the largest corporations in the world, we presently if they bid on food services, we buy a few hundred thousand dollars-worth of food in this territory, we give them some extra money. And I get they have a building here and they have staff here but my question is, will the Minister remove Walmart from Schedule 3? Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think at this point the only fair thing is to scrap the entire list and have a policy that anyone can apply to, and maybe some of these companies will reapply. But when you look at many of them, it's clear they have been bought and sold tens of times since they were put on this list and many are owned by, you know, global consortiums around the world. It just doesn't make sense to be spending extra taxpayer dollars on them.

So my question for the Minister of ITI is when is this procurement review going to be finished and will it remove this schedule? Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When are we going to remove Walmart from the business incentive policy, Mr. Speaker? I want to clarify it's not just Walmart, it's the entirety of Schedule 3 of the business incentive policy, which is a list of 54 grandfathered southernowned companies that, about a decade ago, seemed to get grandfathered in. And, Mr. Speaker, these are some of the largest companies in the world, like Loblaws. Why do we have to give preferential bid adjustments to Loblaws, Mr. Speaker?

Another egregious example, Northwestel. Northwestel has a legallyprotected monopoly in the North yet we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister of health recognize that the future of our health system is not just to keep moving our specialized services down to Alberta and bring back our rheumatology program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.