Rylund Johnson

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Speaker of the Northwest Territories, in consultation with the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures and before the end of the 19th Assembly, review and amend the Rules of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly to allow annual reports of statutory officers to be released publicly once they are received and before they are tabled. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories, in consultation with the Standing Committee on Government Operations and within the first two years of the 20th Assembly, review each of the Ombud’s recommendations in her 20192020 Annual Report in the context of a wholistic review of the Ombud Act and amend the Act accordingly. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I asked this during yeah, and that would also kind of allude to my point of I could go to every single department and try and find in their operations some sort of licensing contract. I mean, actually I couldn't do that and it wouldn't become publicly available. But I think I would easily get to tens of millions of dollars quite quickly in licensing fees every year, let alone the actual initial capital ask that gets made here.

But I wanted to ask one last question, which was, that Infrastructure is spending an undisclosed amount of millions of dollars on...

Yeah, and I guess I'm wondering if you know, this is one of those areas where I also find a hard time for any of us to provide any accountability. You know, we spend millions on licensing and software and trying to procure these things, there's often problems. I understand that is the case across all governments. I don't really know anything about IT but I'm wondering if well, I guess I'll start with a question.

I heard Infrastructure is planning a dashboard to kind of update projects as they go along and perhaps release some sort of fiveyear capital plan, and I believe almost every...

Yeah, thank you. I guess I'll also reiterate another concern is I really wish that when the capital budgets were estimated or were included that some public information was included about each of these so I did not have to go through each one and ask for a status update. But I'm going to ask for a couple here.

The student records module replacement I see completed for 20252026. Can someone just confirm to me, I believe we had previously passed money, and I thought this was for ECE, for a student record system and then I believe at one point the Minister of ECE said we went out to tender it and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yellowknife North constituent Tasha Olekshy as well, who works in ENR's climate change and air quality unit is here today, as the Minister will be tabling the annual climate change report. Thank you for joining us.

I don't have any further questions. I hope the next Assembly gets this done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Office of the Chief Public Health Officer just released a latest public health warning expecting an influx of respiratory illnesses in a wave from down south to head up here. Additionally, we know COVID is still spreading and we just recently released the bivalent vaccination. And this all, Mr. Speaker, is to say it's a reminder that when you are sick, it is best to stay home. Yet, Mr. Speaker, for many people that is not an option.

When surveyed, the number 1 reason people go to work sick is because they can't afford it. And, Mr. Speaker, the solution to that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's not often, actually, that committee gets to pass motions directed at the Speaker so I'm happy to do that. We also made a similar one for the public accounts. But what often happens is the Speaker will have a document in his possession but wait until the Assembly has to be sitting until it's tabled, in this case July 1st. So committee would like to get these reports the minute that they are completed and submitted to the Speaker and not sometimes have to delay their review by three months simply because session is not in. So, Mr. Speaker, if you're listening, we'd...

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my intention, outside of my role as SCOGO chair but as an individual Member, to introduce a private Member's bill this sitting and hopefully get some changes to the Ombud Act in the life of this Assembly. Those are to be some of the smaller and easier changes. Some of the larger ones I think do require the government to go out and thoroughly consider them and perhaps engage with the public; you know, something beyond what a committee or an individual Member can do. And I guess this motion here is just reiterating and asking the government to once again look at the...