Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that funding for the Chief Electoral Office is somewhat cyclical. If we look in 2019-2020, an election year, it's $1,486,000, and then from year to year, it's about $500 million. However, I see that there is an increase here. Can I just get an explanation why there is an increase outside of an election year? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see that there is about a $800,000, I'm doing math on the fly, decrease to conservation planning and implementation, looking at page 80, from $5,263,000 to $4,400,000. Can I just get a bit of an explanation of why we are decreasing our funding for conservation planning and implementation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The document I'm mostly talking about is the fact that we built a giant building, and we decided not to lease it. My final question to the Minister here is: if, in fact, we are renting any of this $18 million to a non-northern landlord, will the Minister commit to conducting the cost benefit analysis of lease to own versus the policy and make sure we are not, in fact, paying a premium to any of these southern landlords? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I seem to recall there was an announcement of a number of positions across the GNWT in regard to this. Can I just get a clarification of whether there was any federal funding attached to those, and if so, how much?

That's the $18 million that I really would encourage the department to look at and see if we can make that a smaller number and give that to some northern businesses. One of my concerns is that our Leasing of Improved Real Property Policy only permits us to pay a premium to a northern business, and if we are going to rent from a southern business, it actually has to be cheaper to lease as opposed to own. I am a little concerned that, as these buildings have been sold off, resold, merged, and acquiesced over the years, we have fallen out of compliance with our own policy. My question to the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry. I misunderstood that a little earlier, how exactly those positions get started. I see there are 23 staff here, but how many are actually working on the Waste Reduction Unit? I just want to get a sense of how well we're funding this. The Waste Resource Management Strategy is great; it has the potential to save us lots of money in making sure that, when we have to track how much it costs to put all of our buildings into landfills, we are doing that properly. I just want to get a sense of how many staff are actually in the Waste Reduction Unit to do that work. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Fundamental to any community's success is local ownership of land and buildings. Local landlords reinvest their rents into the community. They take more risk on local businesses, and they are key to a community's identity. However, Mr. Speaker, our capital city has a serious problem with local ownership. Thousands of our housing units and millions of dollars' worth of commercial office space are owned by southern REITs or various southern multi-billion-dollar investment funds. These landlords have long treated real estate as an investment as opposed to the offices and...

Madam Chair, I show some frustration on that. The department has done a lot of work on the EPA and the Waters Act and has spent thousands of dollars working with Indigenous governments and stakeholders. It's in the business plan, and I'm now hearing that we're waiting on the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which operates on federal timelines. Is that also the case for the Air regulations, that we will then have to delay the Air regulations pending the MVRMA?

Thank you, Madam Chair. The department's four-year business plan says that the Waters Act will be introduced in quarter four of this fiscal, along with the Environmental Protection Act. Can I just get clarification that that is not actually the case? We will not be introducing those as per the business plan because we are waiting to see what happens with the MVRMA negotiations? Is that what I just heard? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There has been a lot of talk about biomass and a lot of questions to Infrastructure previously and different departments. As part of that kind of longer-term vision is the idea of communities developing their own, whether it is cord wood or wood chips and kind of these community wood lots, can I just get a sense of whether forest management has any role in that work or money in that budget for that type of work or whether that is a question best left to the biomass people? Thank you, Madam Chair.