Rylund Johnson

I am happy to hear that. Yes. My understanding is that there will be a lot of program overlap, but there are going to be a few people who fall through the cracks. It just doesn't make sense to me to not fund them for the year and make the transition between programs smooth. I don't want to be asking questions on behalf of my constituents. For the few that didn't make it, let's fund them for the year and make this a smooth transition. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to rise in support of my colleague's point of privilege. I think, as a person who only speaks English, this is an issue I can never truly understand. I've worked in the courts, and I've seen people I struggled to understand, and I think the importance of interpreters in the Northwest Territories -- and this issue is so much bigger than us, and so much bigger than this House -- every step we take as leaders to support our Indigenous languages is the right step, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do appreciate that breakdown, and I guess it wouldn't be fair for us when referring to the cap to include market because, if we can build more market housing and then it pays for itself or even makes us money, then that's great. I guess my question is: I'm not satisfied with our current mandate commitment which says we'll build 100 units if we can convince 100 people to get units. In many of the communities, a house is not an investment; it's a depreciating asset, and we're just passing on something that will never increase in value to a person. I question whether...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm aware, you know, that Indigenous governments will take on powers when they want, but I wouldn't be interested, and I don't think anyone would be interested, in taking on housing without the money there. We all know it's a struggle. I think a lot of the Indigenous governments are capable of doing this and would if they knew they were also going to get the funding that the local housing authorities get. Would the Minister be willing to take a bit of a proactive approach here and make offers regarding what we would actually offer to fund the Indigenous governments? To...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister looking into that. I do think there are some very large structural governance issues with the Housing Corporation that will require political restructuring. On that, we have local housing authorities, all of which have boards. There is always the trade-off; the more local control we give to the housing authorities, you know, we get better decisions on the ground, but each of those cost us money to run. We also know they're not exactly the best at collecting rent. Is the Minister planning on looking at the governance structure of the housing...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I will begin with: why does the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation not have a board?

I will convey that information to the city, and I look forward to asking about those discussions. I can tell you the reason that the City of Yellowknife has asked for this is because they find dealing with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs extremely frustrating. I am happy to finally see the Property Assessment and Taxation Act coming forward. There is a number of unique things that we can do in Yellowknife, whether it be municipal bonds, local services, vacancy taxes, that simply just would not make sense in the smaller communities and may not even make sense in the other tax...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I previously asked questions to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs regarding a Yellowknife city charter. I was hoping that the Minister responsible could outline a process and provide that document to the City of Yellowknife on what a path forward for a Yellowknife city charter could look like.

I appreciate that answer. The importance here is that carbon offset pools are increasingly becoming a more and more common, larger pool of money to tap into. The federal government is looking at setting up a credit scheme nation-wide, and I don't want the Northwest Territories to be left behind. One of my concerns with this is that it's not really built into our energy strategy or our climate change strategy, so I want to make sure that we look into this properly. Can the Minister work with her counterparts in Infrastructure and ENR and make sure there are some clearer points of accountability...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I would like to speak about carbon offsets. Firstly, a carbon offset is a credit for greenhouse gas reductions achieved by one party, that can be purchased and used to compensate the emissions of another party. Mr. Speaker, there are a variety of carbon-offset schemes, and some have proved to work better than others. Today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak about not just simply buying carbon offsets but the possibility of selling them and using what is an increasingly larger and larger market with billions of dollars to access and fund projects in the North.

The...