Rylund Johnson

Yeah, Madam Speaker, one of the other things that I grow frustrated about is that there is no definition of a rightsbased cabin. Right now, Lands wants you to identify them but they say they have no tool to give you a special form of tenure. They make it clear they will send you a lease fee. I think you can get an exemption from taxes, but it seems to be very inconsistent. It's unclear to me what someone with a rightsbased cabin is actually supposed to do, or what the government wants them to do. So perhaps following that Council of Leaders, can I get a commitment that EIA will put something...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker. I know that lands is posting notices and they are not getting uptake, and there are a lot of Indigenous governments who are specifically telling their members do not identify your cabin. And I think there's a history there because what then happens is you have to get a lease and then you have to pay lease fees and then you have to pay taxes. And so why would you do that when you could just have your cabin for free? And I think the step here is right now there is a wild inconsistency on which Indigenous rights holders are paying anything for their cabins, which...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do share the view that it's clear that our problems started with the 17th Assembly, Madam Speaker, but I will address my comments today to the Minister of Finance for the 19th Assembly.

Firstly, I believe this budget is lacking in two areas. One is more money for NGOs. I know this budget contains some increases for our nongovernment organizations, which was a result of the last budgets negotiations, and I thank the Minister of Finance and all the departments for their work on that, but I am concerned that this is simply set out to be a onetime funding. I spoke with...

Yeah, thank you. And can someone just help me understand. My understanding is that Housing First currently also operates out of Northview through leasing. But I'm just wondering if those are we hold those leases or the nonprofit does, or whether that is anything to do with the housing corp.? Thank you.

What? That was a question there.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, admittedly I have to delve into that report. And I know we always throw around these numbers of billions of dollars to get our stock up to where it should be. I'm just curious, you know, we have a budget here with a $30 million increase and that's good. But do we have kind of a monetary figure of you know, in an asset management plan if you the last question was how are we going to pay for this or what is it going to cost. I'm just the bare maintenance, according to replacing that 1,300 unit number, how much money or additional money we need? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are for the next section.

Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker. You know, it's back to that chicken and egg problem. No one is going to tell you it's a rightsbased cabin if it means they all of a sudden have to start paying taxes and lease fees and they're presently not doing that. And we can't exempt them from taxes and lease fees unless we identify a definition of whether it's a rightsbased cabin. So this is why this issue has not been solved. I think at the very least, there are a number of obviously rightsbased cabins where they were told to get a lease, they perhaps did not understand what that meant, they perhaps got...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I spoke in my statement today how I think cabins are really a bellwether for how settling land claims are going and, you know, we've seen a number of court cases over the years. I think one of the main problems is that if you have a if you're an Indigenous person and you're using a cabin for rightsbased purposes, you're treated just like anyone else. You have to get the same leases, pay the same taxes, and follow all the same conditions.

So I'm wondering if the Premier will work to create some sort of different tenure for those rightsbased cabins, to put them in a...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do not believe that this territory can move forward on settling land claims without first sorting out the issues of rightsbased cabins. And, Madam Speaker, this is a bit of a catch-22 in that the cleanest solution to settling rightsbased cabins is settling land claims, because once an Indigenous government has their land and their cabins are on it then they can sort that out with their membership. Yet, Madam Speaker, we have heard time and time again, in many meetings with Indigenous governments, on no matter what the subject, quite often it comes back around to...