Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. The committee report was read into the record on Tuesday, October 18th, 2022. The Standing Committee on Government Operations has reviewed the 20202021 Annual Report of the Ombud. The Ombud Act requires the Ombud to prepare an annual report. The report includes information on the number of inquiries, complaints received. It can also include recommendations. The Speaker tables the report in the Legislative Assembly. Once tabled, the committee reviews the report.

As part of the review of the Ombud, Ms. Colette Langlois appeared before committee on February 11, 2022...

Yeah, thank you. And I think perhaps, you know, some sort of I mean, it's somewhat ironic to me that how little information publicly available with the Office of the Chief Information Officer. You know, we rolled ISSS into, you know, one department, and there's millions of dollars there. I'm wondering if the Minister could take back the idea of perhaps you know, I don't even know how many software licences we have presently, how much they presently cost, when they are up for renewal. But I expect that if you looked at the replacement costs and the licensing costs, it's tens of millions of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's become a bit of a tradition for me to ask about the Fort Good Hope Seniors Home every session, which has proven that not all traditions are good, but it's been 20 months since the Minister opened that facility. And my question for the Minister of Housing is when can we expect it to actually open? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad to hear that, and maybe I'll have some questions about when we can finally wrap up this procurement review.

My next question is, you know, we're talking about multiple office towers here. I recognize we're not going to empty a 10storey commercial office building overnight. I think it's going to take probably a decade or two of concerted of effort to actually adjust this percentage that grows every single year to one company. But I think a first step would be reviewing when we put leases out whether they could be in smaller chunks, whether we could work with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's no coherent reporting of how much we spend on leasing and how much that and who it goes to. You can go into the contracts, but the problem is we inherited quite a few of these leases from the federal government upon devolution, and some of these leases are 20 years old and they just seem to be renewed every time they come up. So I'm hoping the Minister can provide me some updated figures on how much we paid Northview since this Assembly started. I suspect it's a number that just continually climbs every year, but I can't actually confirm that with public...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess my next question is, you know, we're looking at labour and development advanced education here. There's $3.5 million this year for Inuvik Campus. That's good. But, you know, we have released a facilities master plan or I forget what we called it, for Aurora College. There's hundreds of millions of dollars of work to be done. I'm not seeing that here.

I guess, can the Minister provide us a bit of an update on when he expects to see some other Aurora College projects go first. And I believe first on that list is replacing one of the day schools in Fort Smith...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We don't talk about the Inuvik Campus much so I'll ask a question or two. Firstly, can the Minister remind me how much federal money is in the Western Arctic Research Centre warehouse replacement here? Thank you

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I recall, you know, I don't recall what is public or not, but at one point there was some back and forth with the community because they perhaps had much larger intentions of what this school would be, you know, including perhaps some communitybased infrastructure in it. Yeah, I'm just hoping if I can get a bit more of an update on how that work is going with Colville Lake and whether, you know, this is going to be the kind of superschool that it was initially planned as or whether this is going to be just a school that is in compliance with our current kind of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 53, An Act to Amend the Liquor Act, received second reading in the Assembly on May 31st, 2022, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for a review on October 7th, 2022.

Committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Finance and completed its clausebyclause review of the bill. Committee received no submissions on this bill.

I thank committee for their efforts in reviewing this legislation. I have no comments at this time, but individual Members may have additional questions or comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, admittedly I've been asking about this for quite a while now, and I'm still not really sure what occurred here. You know, initially I thought it was just our usual fight with the fire marshal but it's clear there's some larger contractual issues or contracting issues. Can the Minister just try and, you know, in simple terms explain to me what exactly has occurred here? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.