Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for Housing. About 18 months ago, her and the Minister of Health opened the Fort Good Hope Seniors Centre, but then it didn't open. And the Minister said she would open it in the summer, and then it didn't open. And then in the fall, the Minister said it would open in the new year, and then it didn't open. And in the last session, the Minister didn't give a date when it would open next, but it was clear the lawyers were getting involved.

So my question for the Minister of Housing is when will the Fort Good Hope Seniors Home...

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's quite clear that all of our policies on personal devices and handheld devices are quite outdated, and this is both an access and a privacy issue. And I guess this needs to be a reminder to the public service that please do not conduct any personal business on work cell phones and computers, and certainly do not conduct any work business on personal devices. These lines should not be blurred. They make both yes, the amount of information, private information that cell phones can collect these days is truly remarkable, but it takes it outside of ATIPP and it has had...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad to hear that answer from the Minister that we're looking at this. One of the issues that I've heard from Yellowknife's LHO is that they would like a little bit more autonomy to apply for federal funding, and they've been approached by Indigenous governments who have asked if they would maintain and operate their buildings, something that, you know, would be doing work outside of the purview of their agency agreement with the NWT Housing Corporation.

So I think we're kind of in the worst possible situation where the LHOs do not have autonomy to go out and get...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Previously, this committee has moved motions that ATIPP staff receive training, and I believe with the new centralization of the Access and Protection of Privacy office, a lot of that is being done. But it is clear that the number of breaches we're seeing are obviously not done by ATIPP officers. They're happening on the front lines with staff who deal with private information. And this motion recommends that the Information and Privacy Commissioner is more than willing to work with the department to provide training to those people to bring down the number of breaches...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to point out that every single municipal project ever has the total public amount released before tendering because it's approved by council. I want to note that every time the federal government announces money, we have the total amount because they announced it. Did we get mad at the federal government when they told us how much the Fort Providence Transmission Line was going to cost, which has not yet been tendered?

Mr. Speaker, additionally, we don't give public estimates and we don't give business cases. I don't know if there's actually a business case for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The printed copy I have did not have a back to the motion so I need to add some more words to the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, a "no" would have sufficed. I actually don't have any idea how much this project costs, and what we're talking about.

Can the Minister tell me how much money we've spent to date on this project and how much money this Assembly has approved? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Did I move it already, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to rise today and speak about transparency in infrastructure budgeting.

Last fall in this House, we passed a confidential amount for the Whati Power Project. We're not allowed to say how much we passed. We also know the total amount of that project but it's confidential information. And when you ask the government why we can't talk about how much a specific project says, they say oh, it'll affect tendering. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I just don't believe that is remotely true.

A comparable project, the Fort Providence Transmission Line, we know costs $60 million. In...

Against.