Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'm just very excited to see this $750,000 towards the antipoverty fund. I think we all support, you know, helping NGOs through this time and trying to, you know, ultimately end poverty in the Northwest Territories. But I know there's been some concerns in the past about the antipoverty fund doesn't necessarily address the systemic issues of poverty. Can I just get an update on I believe there's a review underway or whether there will be any changes to how we disburse the money under the antipoverty fund, seeing this $750,000 added. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think, you know, there's probably some goodwill after you give the airlines millions of dollars to and I'm not asking for a new route, I'm asking for the return of the sorry, too many noise. The Air North and the Canada North code share route, Yellowknife to Whitehorse. And, you know, I've heard some rumors that if the travel bubble gets going, that they may be willing to do that themselves. So just a commitment that the Minister of Finance will reach out to those airlines about the possibility of that happening. I think it could be a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know Nunavut's number's somewhere about $40 million as well and just recently in the legislature, a couple of the MLAs said it was a missed opportunity not to take an equity stake given the amount of money they'd actually given the Air North by then. I know the Canadian government took six percent equity stake in Air Canada with part of their bailout. At any point, were there any conversations or did we consider taking an equity stake in Canadian North?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to make a comment that this is the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs almost having their travel budget, and when I look at the few million dollars we took out the GNWT travel budget and what it's paying for, you know, investments in mental health and wellness, investments in the poverty fund, I think this is a great work, and I think it was this Cabinet leading by example. And I know we've had no controversy about Ministers, MLAs, and senior management travelling, but I just commend this Cabinet. They made lots of sacrifices, and it hasn't...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll try and keep my comments brief considering we already agreed to this. I'm very happy to see the child care infrastructure fund. This is much needed money. I believe, though, we need something like $20 million to make up our infrastructure deficit to get to the requiredto place where all our communities have child care. And I know the previous fund was oversubscribed. And I'm hoping we can get this money out the door very quickly, and I know the department will do that. I guess I'm just looking for I know some of the previous applications didn't quite meet the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I guess I one day hope that there's a path forward where the Yellowknife DMV can look to do what most capitals across Canada and most, you know, government service officers in other jurisdictions do, which is have a portion of their hours be available, either on evenings or weekends, just for a small few hours for those people who cannot get time off work to make normal 9to5 hours. Is there any possibility of that happening, Mr. Speaker?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. I think it's much needed for a lot of our tourism operators who are facing another very uncertain year about whether they will have any tourism.

I want to move on to the support for tourism accommodation relief program, the STAR program, which is $3.2 million for hotels and accommodations. I guess I also have similar concerns for this in that the vast majority of hotel rooms in the NWT are in Yellowknife; the majority of those hotel rooms are owned by very large hotel chains who, you know, certainly do not reside  or not owned by...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe it was yesterday in the House, the Minister of Justice was talking about integrated service delivery and the goal being to, you know, make government processes designed for the people and not necessarily what is easiest for government. For almost a year now, the Yellowknife department of motor vehicles has not accepted walkin appointments. You have to get an appointment. I've had numerous constituent issues regarding this. So my I believe this is clearly easier for the department to run it that way but not necessarily the public. So my question for the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll start with the one for licensed tourism operators, $2.5 million. I'm glad to see this. I think tourism bailout or assisting our tourism operators is much needed funding. And I'm glad to see the GNWT do this of their own initiative. I think to date, we've been waiting on a lot of federal programs and these are designed to kind of fill some of those gaps. So I'm going to vote in favour of the money. I just had some questions about how it is spent.

Of the $2.5 million for tourism operators, how much of that do we expect to go to northern tourism operators...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps I'll save debate on the cost of ending poverty for another time. I just hope that the funds had some clear aims to be used for that.

There's $591,000 here for the phase 2 of the NWT's midwifery program. Can I just get a confirmation on when we expect those positions to actually be hired. Thank you.