Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During the Minister of Health and Social Services Minister's statement today, she mentioned that the gap between what we pay our nurses and what other jurisdiction are paying is closing, and we are one of the only jurisdictions in Canada that, during COVID19, did not give recruitment and retention bonuses. But one line jumped out at me is that we she went to FMB and got approval to give those bonuses and then in consultation with the union there was not agreement to provide that money.

My question is for the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for that relationship...

Yeah, thank you. And I guess, you know, my understanding is what historically has happened is that leasing has been rather decentralized, and departments just kind of tell Infrastructure what they need. And I guess I'd like the department to speak to any work they might be doing in this area to, you know, centralize it, maybe be push back sometimes and say hey, you don't need this office space; actually we're going to move you into this building because it'll save us a bunch of money. And I know there has been some new design standards to perhaps, you know, lower the total number. I'm just...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'm going to just ask again there, because I actually didn't know that leases that the department had would fall under contract services. Can I just in this $69 million, is that the primary driver, then, that the leasing money falls under here, or what are the biggest contracts under this $70 million? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll hold off on any more questions about salt. It just seems like a lot of money to spend on salt considering we don't use it for the coldest and darkest months.

I have some questions about the highway operations budget here. I'll note previous fiscal, it was at $71 million. This year's fiscal, it's jumped about $14 million, and then we're asking for another $3 million. I think it's fair to say if you went back in time and look at the highway operations budget, it has a steady, steady increase. It's not getting any cheaper to maintain our highways.

Can I just...

Yeah, I guess when bringing forward this ask for a half million dollars in salt, it seems like a lot. Can I get, you know what is the temperature we don't put salt on the roads and for how many months of the year essentially are we not salting the roads? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I just get the total amount we are spending on road salt right now?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And I sorry, I think the Minister said that I may have to ask Finance this question, and forgive me if I am slightly confused how this all works. Like I said, we're charging back $32 million to ourselves as a GNWT here. I get that TSC has about $10 million in staff, but some of them has 20 million remaining. How much of that would be going to Northwestel? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I look forward to seeing the SUP going forward in this fiscal that we're reviewing now I guess next fiscal, and I'll have a number of questions then.

But it's my understanding that we're actually hoping to reimburse some people who have already paid childcare costs in this calendar year. Can I just get an update of how that work is going and when we expect that to occur? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, can I just get a bit of an update on how whether we expect this to improve internet in schools in Yellowknife? We met with a number of the school boards, and they said during the switch to online learning that at certain times it just became impossible, and they were well past, you know, any of the bandwidth that TCS was providing them. Do we expect that this improvement will allow online learning to, you know, be a bit more feasible in the NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm surprised my colleague from Frame Lake didn't ask it. Is there any update on renaming the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre, and maybe we could consider asking the Prince of Wales to pay for that $170 million upgrade if he wants to keep his name on it. Thank you, Madam Chair.