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, Mr. Speaker. I guess my concern is that the women's society is trying their best to navigate the CMHC process, the Housing Corp process, they  trying to get all of its residents on income support and working with HSS funding. But that is a lot of things to get in line in a short amount of time. It's causing a lot of anxiety and uncertainty for that organization. Is there a path forward where we can get some sort of assurance beyond this September 30th date, that they will continue to operate? For example, if the CMHC funding does not come through, can the Minister of Health and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Glad to hear that, and I'm glad to hear we're gone through the DFO inspection process. I know that was not easy for a couple aspects of this. I guess the last public information I have kind of seen on this is in regards to the entire fishery revitalization plan which sets out some idea for the remote collection stations but based on what the Minister said, there seems to be quite a bit of progress. And I guess I'm just looking for a commitment that we get, you know, some public information about where exactly they're going and how large they are and when we can expect...