Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sorry, I know we call want to go home but I would like to just make some comments about the final budget as we are passing it and the commitments that the Minister made in this House previously.

Initially, I said my support on this budget was contingent on two things. That was some more money for our community governments and some more money for our nonprofits. Unfortunately, I had to vote in favour of the carbon tax to get the money for the community governments as I just did but I'm happy to see that additional approximately $1.8 million combined with $600,000 in this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I don't actually know whether we should build Taltson, and I don't think I should even have an opinion on it. I think the power corp needs to have a business case, and it needs to be evidencebased, and we need to crunch the numbers to see who's going to buy our power, for how much, and if it makes sense then most certainly we should do that. And, really, it is an evidencebased decisionmaking, and we shouldn't be here on the floor of the House asking basic questions such as how much is this whole thing we've been talking about for decades actually going to cost...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't hear how much the project was going to cost, which seems like a pretty fundamental thing you would want to know, is how much is this project going to cost. We have an MOU to build it. We were asking the federal government to give us money. Certainly we must know how much we're asking for, Mr. Speaker. But apparently not.

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that this project has fallen through in the past is that we just can't quite get to a rate of power that is competitive with the price of diesel, and so mines do not want to enter into a longterm power purchasing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How much is the Taltson project going to cost? Where is it going to go? Who are we selling the power for? Mr. Speaker, people in this House have been asking those questions for two decades. In 2004, Joe Handley said that a line to the diamond mines was expensive; it was going to cost us $170 million, Mr. Speaker. Well, Mr. Speaker, if we could get a line to the diamond mines from Taltson for $170 million, I'd build it tomorrow. However, Mr. Speaker, what happened in 2014 is after spending $18 million in studying, we found out the diamond mines didn't want to buy our...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was not part of the committee, and so I'm just trying to catch up on where we're at with this. But I want to note that the act, where it's starting a new complaint process does the director first has to decide whether to even disclose the identity of the complainant to the operator. And I would say in many cases, you probably don't want to do that. And if I'm going to file a complaint against my day home, I'm probably going to ask to remain anonymous. And I know that anonymous complaints processes are often used in other jurisdictions in day homes to protect the...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Selling 60 megawatts in this territory is no small feat. You know, we're definitely going to need quite a few mines and they're going to need to operate for multiple decade with longterm power purchasing agreements to sell 60 megawatts of power. And I didn't hear how much the project was going to cost, and I didn't hear how much we actually expect that power to cost. I'll note that a lot of these operations can look to Alberta that sell at about $0.12 a kilowatt hour power, which is a lot cheaper than what we could ever hope to get to.

Mr. Speaker, I'm hoping...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've been at this Taltson thing for about two decades now and tens of millions of dollars in engineering studies, and I guess my first question is can the Minister tell me how much this Taltson Expansion is going to cost? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I support MLA Cleveland's ongoing efforts to make sure we increase our population, but I don't want to do that on the backs of unplanned pregnancies, Mr. Speaker, and especially, I think, unplanned teen pregnancies are a reality in the North, and we all know that they have longterm consequences, and people, you know, may not have access to the contraception to make their own choices. And so my question seeing now that BC has provided universal contraception, is this something that the Minister of health supports. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its report on Indigenous Representation in the Northwest Territories Public Service and commends it to the House.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations reviewed Indigenous representation in the Northwest Territories public service. Currently, Indigenous employees make up approximately thirty percent of the Government of the Northwest Territories public service while, at the same time, half of the NWT's population is Indigenous.

Finding ways to increase Indigenous representation in the GNWT...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 67, An Act to Amend the Fire Prevention Act, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on November 3rd, 2022, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review.

Bill 67 proposes changes to the Fire Prevention Act, which has not been reviewed since it was first passed in 1988. The committee sought public feedback on this legislation. During its review, the committee heard that clarity and certainty was needed with respect to the timelines of the appeal board process. The committee also heard concerns regarding the composition of...