Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I already got my early Christmas present from the Minister of Finance when she tabled the 2021 public accounts yesterday. And in those public accounts, Mr. Speaker, a trend that has continued for a number of years continues on with the GNWT exponentially getting sued for more and more money, well over a $100 million right now. I was just hoping the Minister of Finance could shed some light on what is going on here. Who is suing us? And why does this number just exponentially grow? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've tried to find some information on this, and I think key to having this conversation is knowing how many people currently have no paid sick days. I expect the overwhelming majority do. We know that all GNWT workers do and those with collective bargaining units certainly have paid sick leave. It's really a small percentage of what I would deem working poor typically who do not get access to paid sick days. I'm wondering if we have that information of who presently in the NWT labour force has zero sick paid sick days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member's statement, I went through the fact that a number of jurisdictions are finally, I think, taking the long overdue step of introducing some paid sick days for workers under their employment standards legislation. My question for the Minister is will he do the same? Thank you.

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a response to this report within 120 days. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Committee conducted a review of best practices of public accounts across the jurisdiction and pulled these ones out. I would like to speak to a couple of them.

One, I really believe having ten years worth of data available from the public accounts would allow us to see these larger trends. It's just simply not really there.

Secondly, we make a number of recommendations of lining up the public accounts to the budget and the variances. There was some very odd disconnect that the public accounts are an accounting exercise done by the accountants. They don't even look at the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, we talk about the fiscal responsibility policy but we've heard the Department of Finance say that our current spending is unsustainable. There's clearly a disconnect between making sure that the policy works. I think it is doing certain things. I know that it limits us to, you know, funding 50 percent of infrastructure through operating surplus and then we usually reach right up to the other half with debt. And I think this is actually just created a push to use P3s, because they are not part of that analysis. So I think it's having unintended consequences...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I think having some public reporting on this is just a small part. We're being sued for $107 million. I have absolutely no idea. There is no public information about who or why that is. If we all of a sudden have $107 million show up in our budget, none of us are going to be happy. I suspect that a lot of this is from P3 legacy projects and contract disputes. I know there's some various class actions out there. I'm guessing really, based on news headlines, as to why we might all of a sudden owe $107 million.

Furthermore, I think the GNWT has absolutely refused to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would ask that, you know, even if the government disagrees with this motion, they could try to explain what was going on. The auditor general told us that the Old Stanton was a P3, and the GNWT accountants disagreed. We had a battle of the experts going on in committee. And I don't know public accounting standards well enough, or the new P3 standards well enough, but to me when the Auditor General of Canada tells you something is away, according to the public accounts, you listen to them. So I would like to hear a bit more of a detailed response to this motion. Thank...

Madam Chair, the committee's report was read into the record on December 2nd, 2021. I do not have any additional substantive comments to add at this time. Individual Members may have comments on the report. I'd like to thank committee, the department, and the auditor general for their work on this report. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I empathize with the concern that we had 22 priorities, and that was too many, and the future Assembly should aim to have less. But I am still not convinced that if we had less priorities we would be in a much better situation. I think there is a bit of a bellwether, that we're at our halfway mark and then there's a sense of frustration in this House. Notably, we have been in a global pandemic and steering the GNWT ship is a difficult task and COVID has not made that easier. But, Mr. Speaker, I believe we have to pick some of those priorities and get them done. And to...