Rylund Johnson

No further questions. I'm sure I'll have questions on the 44 percent of that money that is leases when we get to the information item. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As noted by the Member from Great Slave, today, March 1st, is an important date for a number of reasons. Today, restrictions end, we are welcoming tourists back to our territory but, Mr. Speaker, all of these actions pale in comparison to one event that occurred today which is the opening of the snow castle, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to report that a special envoy of MLAs went down at lunchtime to the grand opening of the snow castle, and it is better than ever this year. The slide is in great working order, Mr. Speaker, and I encourage all of the residents of the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'm going to ask a couple questions about leasing.

I understand that due to both a Cabinetlevel policy and a public accounting standard that we only enter into leases of less than five years, because after five years they tend to be a tangible or a capital lease which would then be recorded as a liability and go up against our debt ceiling. You know, seeing that there's $134 million in lease commitments here, we don't even have that room in our debt ceiling. So we can't enter into longterm leases.

Can I just get a sense from the department to the extent that that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I guess perhaps that $88 million is not as bad as I thought it was because I imagine it includes some amortization of things like bridges, and I I'm getting a nod over there.

I guess I want to move on to contract services here, another line item that I strongly suspect has a pretty steady increase upwards. We're spending $69 million in regional operations on contract services. Can I just get a sense of what the biggest contracts are that make up that $69 million? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I guess I'll note that my understanding is that most, if not all, of our municipalities don't salt their roads. It's one of the nice things about vehicles up here is they don't rust. And I'm just curious whether we have done any studies of whether this $1 million in salt actually makes the roads safer. I guess, you know, considering the coldest winter months, we're not using any because it's useless, I'm just curious, you know, whether we've we are just too far north to actually be spending this much on salt, or have we done any safety standards, or are...

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I believe the Minister was asking for 478,000 more money in road salt but I'm looking for the total that would bring us up to. I believe we're spending quite a bit more than that already. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess before I leave, I just want to get a bit into this problem of, you know, we go out, we design a house for homeownership; it comes in far above the budget and a problem that is likely not getting better. I was hoping I could have the department speak to whether that design process was modular or stickbuilt and perhaps just generally whether we are heading in the direction of doing all modular building. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I I think I'll probably ask some more questions about the potential of the Housing Corp taking out mortgages. I'll also note that they're different than any other government debt because if we build a building and a bank will mortgage it and we decide we don't want it, we could sell it. You know, the bank's not going to give us a mortgage if the asset we build is not worth something. It seems like a different category of debt that we should be leveraging, in my mind.

But I wanted to get one question in about 2038. Can I just get an update on my understanding is...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I guess I want to get into a bit of a debt debate. Can I you know, we had spoke to the Power Corp today. They sure have a lot of debt. They like to take on debt to build all their infrastructure, and they have, you know, a relatively comparable revenue stream to the Housing Corp. I'm just curious why, you know, this crown corporation, which has $100 million a year in revenue, does not go leverage that and get a bunch of financing. I'm kind of curious, is there is that something we shouldn't do, or the reasoning for that? I just think of the way the private...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I just get a bit of an explanation of how this all works? We get $20 million a year from CMHC but then we pay them back a million a year because we owe them 30 million, and I get they're just different agreements. I guess that's why that's happening. But how does this number have any relation to 2038? I guess I'll start with that question. Thank you.