Rylund Johnson

Yeah, I'm sorry, everyone. I get where the Member's coming from. I know the government now has a standard kind of period for reviewing regulations. But I view this as no different than annual reports or mandatory legislative reviews. What happens is you get as a bill comes through the Assembly, you get sometimes these clauses are added, they have different wording, and then you find yourself where the government just has different obligations across a number of Acts. And when you look at them all, there's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just that one Member happened to get agreement from the...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So we did initially amend this as has been discussed to include land use plans. And it's one of these clauses that as far as I can tell doesn't accomplish anything. Land use plans, if they are legally enforceable are legally enforceable, and they're under the MVRMA federal statute or another applicable land claim group. You know, we sometimes put these clauses in that just to remind everyone that other pieces of law exist. And I think that's exactly what the Member's trying to do now with zoning bylaws.

This one, I as far as I'm aware, we don't do this anywhere...

Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Member said, this is essentially the motion that was moved by committee. I supported it then, and I understand the Member's going to move to a couple motions that were already essentially moved by committee. I don't want to speak to the details of them. We spoke to them at committee, and the Minister responded. I guess I want to talk a bit larger about the process we're in now.

All of these motions and the motions we move, I don't think affect Aboriginal rights in any ways. I don't believe they go to the heart of what the technical working group tried to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a bit of a back and forth there between the Minister of Finance and the Member from Twin Lakes about if or when the Affirmative Action Policy is being changed, and I think I kind of lost the plot there. Can the Minister just confirm whether the Affirmative Action Policy is going to be changed in the very short remaining life of this government? Thank you.

Thank you. I see we have some preconstruction engineering regulatory activities for Taltson Expansion preconstruction. Do we have a rough cost estimate of what we think the Taltson Expansion will cost? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. It sounded like we're not going to quite get there in the remaining week. I'm skeptical that the next government will take that on. I know the definition of northern business is complex, and I think you really just have to make a decision and commit to it. I don't suspect there's agreement. But in reviewing that, it says, the Minister's report tabled in July or released in July, it says a new definition of northern business which will result in the removal of Schedule 3 from BIP has been created. I understand it's been shared with Indigenous governments. Can the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We hired an independent panel, and they did some really good work on procurement, and they delivered their report in June 2021. And Mr. Speaker, I somewhat naively thought that, you know, within a few months after that we'd see changes to procurement.

I reviewed their report. I thought they did good work. I didn't really disagree with any of the recommendations. They made a few recommendations to change the thresholds in BIP, increasing the top $1 million to $2 million, recommended creating a local labour adjustment, and a few other tweaks.

They recommended a new...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can someone just explain to me what's going on here with this line item? It was, last fiscal, the actuals were $18 million, and then we were advised sorry, two fiscals there was 18 then we were advised it was 66 and now it's 22. Can I just have a high level explanation of what's going on? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. You know, and I get that's the nature of these; you got to do a lot of planning work and you got to spend a few million dollars. I mean, we've been spending I think since the 16th Assembly we've been spending a few million dollars every budget on Taltson to do some engineering assessments. And I get the project is kind of evolving and it's, you know, no longer going to the diamond mines and it's relying on a bunch of metal mines. I know Pine Point in their preliminary economic assessment says they're buying power from the Taltson at 11 cents a kilowatt hour, which is very...

Yeah, that's all fine. I get the debate. I get the debate when to build it and, you know, this debate if you build it they will come. You know, I just don't understand why we can't have a rough estimate of what it's going to cost. It just doesn't it's like I'm having a debate with no idea. I don't even know what to ask next. Do we know the route yet? Did we make a decision on whether it's submarine or going around the lake? Thank you.