Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. I sure hope the Minister answers my written question then.

I guess, you know, there is no secret that all municipalities across Canada are experiencing very tough pressures on their infrastructure, and it's no secret that we as a government are also doing that. I'll note there's a number of relatively well, no, there's a number of massive kind of federal programmings funding community infrastructure right now. Some have different expiration dates, and quite a few of them flow through GNWT.

Can the Minister speak to any kind of lobbying efforts or work we're doing with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll have a couple of questions on community municipal infrastructure gap.

I see there's about a $1.3 million increase here. Can I just well, can I just clarify firstly. Are we going to meet our goal of closing the municipal funding gap by $5 million, and can the Minister speak to how that works with the formula that actually factors in a number of cost increases over time into the gap? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I am very happy to hear that, and I know that there will be a number of contractors who are familiar with those the likely people who will bid on that RFP and have worked with them across the North in different territories, and I think we ease the workload of those people at the Office of the Fire Marshal by doing that. So I look forward to seeing that RFP.

I wanted to talk about the contract services line item here of $30 million. I'm going I'm quite confident that this is the flood money. Can I just get an update on when we expect to have completed our...

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I've spoken about many times, we are the only place in Canada that doesn't employ building inspectors. We take one small part of the building code, and we give it to the Office of the Fire Marshal. But, you know, compared to Yukon and Nunavut or anywhere else, we don't actually apply the whole National Building Code and we don't really develop that expertise. And I know the Fire Prevention Act is scheduled. I heard the Minister speak during corporate services about all the work they are doing to find policy staff.

I'm just I'm still slightly unsure about what the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I and I know that the department and whenever we're looking to bring a vaccine into public funded, there's a bit of a debate, you know, about most vaccines that save us money in healthcare costs in the long term if they prevent hospitalizations we save money in the long term. And with shingles, in this case we would save people a lot of pain. I'm just wondering if the department has any evidence that or has done any of the research about whether extending this vaccine to everyone would actually save the health system money? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a reminder to everyone to get vaccinated and don't just get vaccinated against COVID. If your kids are in school, get them vaccinated against chicken pox. And if you're over 50, you should be vaccinated against the shingles virus.

The shingles virus, sometimes called adult chicken pox, is when the virus reemerges years later. And, Mr. Speaker, shingles is not just a bad rash. In up to 18 percent of people, it attacks the nervous system and can cause strong shooting nerve pain for months if not years after getting shingles. And it's currently recommended that...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I know the department, well, is reviewing the three policies and, you know, I eventually understand we will update them. I get the kind of scale of that task and getting into the weeds of hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars worth of infrastructure. But I'm just wondering as part of that work whether there is any desire to bring any of this into regulation or to bring it into contract with municipalities. I think there is a bit of a I get that we don't want to bind future Assemblies but the way that municipal or that school funding formula, as...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I recognize it would probably take some concerted effort and, you know, I know we lost we've really been losing our courthouses outside of Yellowknife, and the one in Hay River is really not doing what it used to let alone Inuvik. So I think it would take a very concerted effort by the Department of Justice.

I'm just curious, we have a remote work policy now and there's a possibility for people in Yellowknife to work outside. And, you know, I suspect there is actually probably a few lawyers in the territory who would be willing to relocate to a community for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll just make some comments here.

You know, Scotland I'm going to step out a little. Scotland presented passed a presumption of short sentences of three months. They just said it didn't make it sense to jail people for that long. They lose employment. They lose housing. And that was so successful they actually made it for a sentence of less than a year. They just don't put people in jail for less than a year. They use probation, alternative measures, treatment, whatever else. And I think, you know, if we did that we would have no one left in prison. Anyone...

Thank you, Madam Chair. During I believe it was the capital budget, we were talking, and our corrections are at an alltime low. Part of this is, we suspect, due to COVID and the courts have been shut down but also just a number of other factors. I was just wondering if the Minister had an update of whether we're seeing any trends that the number of inmates is going to go back up? Thank you.