Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my statement, the GNWT already owns and operates one fibre line with Northwestel. Just this week, we spent $6 million to extend that fibre line. And, you know, considering this press release came out yesterday, I'm not going to ask the Minister for a few more million dollars today. I'll give her the weekend before doing that.

I have one question for the Minister of Finance here. Is the Minister of Finance willing to meet with Det’on Cho and Northwestel and see if there is a path forward to some public funding for fibre redundancy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I'm  I'm doing some quick math. I think this is well over $20 million a year in O and M, and I think that's even a very conservative estimate based on what I just heard.

Can the Minister just speak to, I know that Health and Social Services Authority is in deficit. We're trying to find money always for health. The costs are ballooning. Is there  can the Minister speak to kind of whether we are confident that we will have the fiscal room to operate these beds. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just  I notice there is two body holding rooms here. Can I just get a bit of an explanation of what  why we're building body holding rooms. Are they required in all communities now? Is there some sort of standard that's kind of spurring us. I just would like a little bit of clarification there. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I want to ask, can the Minister speak to work being done to make that process easier. I am afraid that we are likely to lose this route with the current council, given their track record, and perhaps there's a way to pull some ropes. I just would welcome the political insights that's happening to make sure that that application development permit is a little smoother. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see there's the continued funding for the wellness and recovery centre in Yellowknife. This has been in the capital budget a couple years now. But can I just get an update on that project and when we expect construction to start. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just trying to understand how the gap works. So say, I'm going to use Yellowknife as an example because then I'm not getting into a debate about communities.

If Yellowknife builds a new pool, that increases the needs for their capital. So does that then mean we adjust the formula and they are then required to new money, or is it just based on a per capita kind of design, or does it actually depend on what has been built in the community? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'm glad I know there's a kind of a couple different systems operating and they don't always speak to each other the best, so I think this is a good opportunity, although it will probably be a very, very expensive one, to look at all of our systems.

As part of that project team looking at this, is it on their agenda a patient online portal. COVID has really pushed this to the forefront, and in many jurisdictions you can log in and you can just see all of your vaccination statuses. You can see outstanding lab test. And you know if we had something like that during...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'm wondering if the Minister can provide a little bit more on the needs assessment. I get some of the point of conflict is based on these kind of arguments of well, you can go get, you know, federal money for that, or perhaps you don't need a brand new pool, or you know, things like that. Can the Minister just speak to work we're doing to kind of reevaluate what proper infrastructure looks like for a community.

I guess in the larger context, this is a very big conversation happening across Canada. Most of our municipalities are in just terrible fiscal...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe this is a number of things the department is doing to provide further virtual care to our residents. I just want to thank the Minister for bringing this forward.

During COVID, we made many steps in this direction, and now there seems to be a bit of a catchup to change some of the regulations, adopt the software, and really be a leader in this area. So I will gladly support this bill on second reading.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I recognize there's some work being done to revisit the formula, which will then give us a new number, but I'm wondering right now what we quantify the gap being. I know we have a mandate commitment to reduce it by $5 million. I know we've made a lot of progress on the operations side and some on the environmental. I believe this is the largest part of the municipal funding gap according to the current formula we've agreed to. Can I just get a numerical figure of how short it is right now?