Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I think there's a lot of work that could be done in opening up the Liquor Act, and I think one of the big areas that I would like to see is delegating some more powers to communities and I think they could set things such as store hours, whether they want a store, whether they want to set limits on how much alcohol can be sold, how alcohol can be served at festivals and events, how licences can be obtained. There's actually I'd basically like to give the whole act to communities, Mr. Speaker. But I'm wondering if in the planned changes that we are hoping to get...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And then I also in this kind of realm of who does what, there's a capital plan coming forward and this year's this budget's capital plan doesn't build any new houses, but it does quite a bit of major retrofits. My understanding is that major retrofits is the decided by headquarters in their capital plan, and then minor maintenance would be the responsible of the LHO. Can I just get a understanding of when maintenance belongs to an LHO verse would have to go through the headquarters capital planning process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement today, I spoke about a number of possible changes to the Liquor Act. I guess one of my hopes is that in the Liquor Act, we will revisit the current liquor commission monopoly and perhaps looking at options of private stores or allowing beer and wine in grocery stores.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'll try another time to get a numerical value there.

I guess my other question is I expressed earlier some concern about what LHOs do verse well, the Housing Corporation, and I think I would express those same concerns with what district sorry, what I don't know what to call it offices do verse LHOs. I get at some point, we want to have people in the community who are making decisions about housing and we want to have jobs in communities. But, you know, in Yellowknife, for example, we have a North Slave office, and we have a headquarters office, and then we have...

Yeah, and I know the Housing Corp traditionally, and I understand, had a preference for stickbuilt. We're seeing a lot more modular units because, you know, with stickbuilt, you can kind of train apprentices and train more people. But can we get some updated figures on, you know, what it costs to deliver modular housing versus stickbuilt housing? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My understanding of how the government works is assistant deputy ministers are essentially in charge of operations of a department, and I know the Housing Corp's a little different, and then associate deputy ministers are usually deputy ministers in waiting or on terms to eventually take over. Is that kind of the thought with this position, that the associate deputy minister may one day be the president, or is he just here for a term for the sake of the renewal? Can I just get some clarification on really, I don't understand "assistant" and "associate" partially. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister may have answered my question there but I'll tell you 200 grand for those eight camps was a great deal, and I know many people are running these not necessarily with government support, that they're communitydriven initiatives. But I've talked to some of the organizers and they'd really like to, you know, take these to another level, perhaps fly in elders, fly in people to help support, you know, turn them into bit of kind of an educational aspect as well. And I just would ask the Minister that perhaps the department, you know, with this fund, reach out to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to commend the department on their work to date working with ECE to get the hunter ed program in the schools. I know we're piloting it in nine schools. I also know there's been some work through Bush Kids and other initiatives to have kind of traditional knowledge in schools. But I would really like to have the Minister work with his ECE colleague to get hide camps into schools. Is this something the Minister could look into doing? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The official flower of the NWT is the mountain aven. The official bird is the gyrfalcon. But I suggest that we add an official smell, Mr. Speaker, and that official smell would be the smell of a traditionally tanned moose hide. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister today for his statement on supporting sustainable livelihoods, and I would like to thank the work ENR is doing to support traditional moose hide tanning. I would like to see more of this.

Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege of helping many people prepare their hides and attending numerous hide...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I would like to thank the Premier for that answer. I think that that's great. I think it's great to have a senior person leading, you know, what is a very important renewal, and I look forward to the results of that.

I guess I have some questions a bit about where we think this renewal is going. I know we got the new statement and vision today. And I think the way I would frame the longstanding tension in the Housing Corporation is whether it is a social envelope department or whether it should be a corporation that is solely focused on assets and infrastructure. And...