Rylund Johnson

Yellowknife North

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This week, I asked the Minister responsible for MACA when the seniors facility in Fort Good Hope would open, and he told me to ask the Minister of Housing. So my question for the Minister of Housing, I know she is intimately familiar with that facility, having been the one who opened it in her community, when will that facility open Madam Speaker?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would really appreciate if we shared some of those principles. I feel like asking questions about something I can't see is a bit of a search in the dark.

One of our commitments is to implement UNDRIP. To date, this House has seen no regulations. I don't believe there's been a single Cabinet policy change and certainly no legislation has changed to reflect UNDRIP. So my question for the Premier is what has been done to implement UNDRIP to date, or what are we doing to implement UNDRIP? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that it's complicated. I guess part of the concern I hear from Indigenous governments is it's the only reason we have the land is devolution before and, you know, I think there's been a lot of criticism about having a third party at the table. And I guess my question is now that devolution is a bit of a defacto completion, is the agreement to sign on to devolution, and I think probably more importantly the corresponding royalty split, a condition for any future land claims as far as the GNWT is concerned?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Madam Speaker, the other night I was watching the news and after years of Iran failing to come to the table to negotiate a nuclear deal, I heard the lead negotiator on that file say they expected a deal within one year. And Madam Speaker, I thought let's hire that guy to settle some land claims.

Madam Speaker, the time, all across Canada in fact, not just the GNWT problem, to conclude a land claim agreement is getting longer and longer. They are becoming slower and slower to negotiate and as the time period gets longer, the number of leaders involved in each negotiating gets longer, only...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Committee Report 2319(2), Report on the Review of the 20182019 and 20192020 Public Accounts, be received by the Assembly and moved into the Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

The paper is on my desk.

Madam Speaker, your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its Report on the Review of the 201819 and 201920 Public Accounts and commends it to the House.

The Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories’ Standing Committee on Government Operations has a mandate to review the Report on the Government of the Northwest Territories’ Public Accounts. This review helps ensure that issues related to public spending the GNWT’s fiscal management practices are publicly examined and scrutinized to promote government accountability. Due to the...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I really hope there's not some engineer in the GNWT who just cringed when he was told that he concurs with the assessment. But my question here is this has happened to the GNWT multiple times, where we've opened buildings and then there's been well, in this case, a oneyear delay before the building is actually opened. Are there some sort of lessons learned? Is there a path forward to prevent us from continuing to not open our buildings or not build them to code. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'll note that March 2022 is a full year after the Minister opened the building officially. Can someone just explain to me what is going on here? Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions were for the Minister of Housing but I've noticed she's stepped out. So I'm going to have an impromptu question for our Premier.

There's been some previous discussion about corporate restructuring, and I'll note that some of that discussion is centered around the departments of ENR, MACA, and Lands, who all tend to have one Minister right now. I'm just wondering if this is still on the table in the life of this Assembly, whether the Premier is going to look at corporate restructuring and how different departments are structured?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would also appreciate any insight to whether we have updated our selfgovernment mandates. My current understanding is that there's hundreds of pages which form the selfgovernment mandate. There's a chapter on every single topic imaginable from health to education to government services. I mean, I have never seen any of this but I'm wondering if, given devolution, given the commitment to UNDRIP, whether a full rewrite of looking at all of the selfgovernment mandates is occurring or has occurred? Thank you, Madam Speaker.