Rylund Johnson

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad to hear that. You know, I think we all know there's a lack of trust and there's still a narrative of the government going up and down the valley, and you know, putting those cede and surrender clauses in, and I think it would be a symbolic win to get them out and to show that we are willing to move on.

We've also heard that for truly free and prior informed consent to exist, perhaps the current regulatory system, although, you know, a great madeinthe North solution, is not one truly built on consent. There is a number of things in agreements where GNWT or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Committee has recently been travelling on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People legislation, and we've been getting a lot of feedback, a lot of feedback that I think many people in this territory have heard for years. But I have a growing concern that this government is kind of blurring the lines of truth and adopting symbolic statements that perhaps they don't fully need.

In that legislation, for example, it says the GNWT rejects all form of colonialism. Certainly a lofty goal but we heard that the GNWT is a colonial government; it is not a valid...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know also on the list of our policy work for the new department to complete is, you know, figuring out what's going on in the Yellowknife periphery area with our recreational leases. I believe there was plans to, you know, assuming we worked with our partners to get a cabin lottery again for the fall. It's been a number of years, and there was a lot of pent of demand. So are we on track to have a cabin lottery in the North Slave occur this fall? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to miss questioning the Minister responsible for Lands, but I hear this new Minister for Environment and Climate Change has got some great answers for me.

Firstly, Mr. Speaker, I just want to confirm whether we are on track to finish the Public Land Act regulations and get the Public Land Act implemented in the life of this Assembly. I note it's been four years to develop those regulations, and it seems like it's about time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, that's probably one of the number one questions I get from constituents is what's going on there. I'm wondering at the very least whether we I get there's a consultation process but whether we could get some public information about what we're even considering, how many cabins, where they would be, and kind of the steps of a path forward to whether that could occur. I think there's a lot of demand to know what is going on in this area so any sort of public information would be welcomed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think central to that question is whether any changes to how we treat Indigenous cabin holders on public land will be changing. Right now, we're still operating under the same approach largely that we inherited from the federal government. I know there's a lot of different requests of how you could do that, changing the fee structure, the tax structure, even the rules about what is and isn't required to have a lease. Are we going to have any policy changes to how we approach Indigenous cabin holders on public land occur in this government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would really like to leave this Assembly with changing our approach to cabins. Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to address concerns around pricing. It's impossible to have any stakeholder engagement on cabins without the first thing you're hearing about is the complaint that cabin fees went up 600 percent about five years ago, Mr. Speaker. And we still have not done anything to address that. Additionally, Mr. Speaker, our pricing and taxation, it does not make sense. Right now under the taxes, a squatter is paying the same amount of tax as a million-dollar mansion on...

Yeah, well, I guess I didn't hear what mines those could potentially be. You know, Pine Point is the most obvious one if we're expanding Taltson. Now they're hopefully going to come online and buy power. Maybe Gold Terra, I don't know. Like, why am I just randomly naming mines that the Minister won't tell us?

I guess the last most important question is can the Minister explain what this is going to do to rates? Do we have any idea what rate we're going to sell this power for. Will it increase cost to ratepayers, or is the plan that we're going to sell so much and make a profit that it will...

Yeah, Mr. Speaker, that wasn't an answer. I just want to know whether  like, are we at a $2 billion ballpark? A $3 billion? I mean, hydro projects have really gone over budget in almost every other jurisdiction in Canada. The 2014 business case is entirely built on the idea of selling to the diamond mines, our energy strategy and our emissions reductions is entirely built on replacing the diesel from the diamond mines. I don't believe what the Minister's talking about involves that but that's not public. So can I just confirm whether any of this work is about being a transmission line and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, 30 years ago the GNWT had a great idea. That was to expand the Taltson Hydro Project, connect the North and South Slave region, and sell power to the upcoming diamond mines. And, Mr. Speaker, if we did that, it's pretty clear that the Taltson Hydro Project would have paid for itself and then some, as the diamond mines use a lot of power, Mr. Speaker, more than the entire territory combined. Yet, Mr. Speaker, here we are 30 years later and we have not built the Taltson Hydro Project and, seemingly, every single year the business case has gotten a little worse. So bad, in...