Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment who's responsible for the Employment Standards Act. Really, all I can say is I've brought this up many times before, and will the Minister introduce paid sick leave in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a response to this report within 120 days. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad the Minister that the department is already doing that, but I think it needs a little bit of a review because, clearly, it's not working if the end goal is local ownership. It's clear, if you look at the city of Yellowknife skyline, we don't have local ownership. Almost every single building is owned by some multi-billion-dollar REIT. So my question is, you know, I think actually a number of companies, perhaps Indigenous development corps, if you gave them enough notice three, five years out that you were looking to renew a very large lease and you were...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure that is proprietary information. I can go to the contracts reports and filter out who wins leases and who we're paying money to. It's not all there because I said many of these leases are well over 20 years old. And I think that lines up with what the Minister said, that our current leases of approved real property policy is well over 20 years old. I'm not remotely convinced that we are in compliance with it. It does require us to be doing continuous value for money analysis, and it does require us to continue to analyze whether it is cheaper to own...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT manages a $31 million lease portfolio. That is larger than the budget of EIA, Lands, and of that $31 million, Mr. Speaker, $21 million goes to one company, that is the combined assets of Northview and KingSett. That's more than we presently provide our communities for water and sewer, Mr. Speaker. We manage 129 leases for 626,000 square feet of office spaces. That's 12 Bellanca buildings, Mr. Speaker; many of them in downtown Yellowknife. And, Mr. Speaker, it is clear that that $20 million a year, we provide to one company year after year for decades now, has...