Rylund Johnson

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Then I think the answer there is to add ALS to the list. I don't understand why this is being posed as a binary that we on one hand want to have a meanstested program for low income people who are you know, inherently don't have these conditions because they would be covered so are likely healthy people, and on the other hand people who are existing with a specified disease condition and putting their current treatment at risk. Is it not possible for the Minister to put forward a new policy that keeps the current approach and as a meanstested approach? Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some significant concerns with the current proposal to change extended healthcare benefits. So my first question to the Minister of health is we've gone out, we've engaged; can the Minister just update this House what the next steps are on this plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to speak a bit about debt for the housing corporation. I've expressed this before that, you know, the power corp has a similar revenue to the housing corp, and it is hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and the housing corp, with about the same revenue as and sorry, I don't have the figure. But you guys got about $10 million or so, and you don't have a debt problem, that's for sure. And I'm just to me, it seems that we're spending, you know, $30 million on housing this is one of the biggest investments we've made in this Assembly that to pay...

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that, that seems like good money. Can I just get a bit of a sense of whether there are any plans to centralize the way we do maintenance? When I speak to the LHOs, you know, sometimes there's push back about what they're responsible for, what we're responsible for, what exactly gets in the schedule. It seems to me that the housing corp should probably have a piece of software that has every single unit in it and every single thing that's been done and all of that's inputted. You know, I know that we are really decentralized in this area. But is there any plans to...

Thank you. Can I get an updated figure of the total amount of money we owe CMHC? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In Schedule 3 of the business incentive policy is quite a long list of companies, and I don't want to go through the reasons of why each of these got in here or others that, you know, seemingly have the exact same situation in this territory didn't. But can the Minister just give me some explanation of how we got here; why is there a specified list of southern companies that we give preferential treatment to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, I guess I'm curious as to why that you know, I get that they're agencies but some of them are, in fact, registered nonprofit societies and fit under federal grant applications and most certainly would be able to go get money. And, you know, the money from the feds might be something as simple as some training for staff, energy retrofits, or building housing. It just seems having another group apply for money of their own initiatives has zero downside. I get we might want to keep a bit of an eye on making sure they're not just building assets with, you know, without the maintenance...

Yeah, thank you. Is that something we are considering revisiting? I know, for example, the City of Yellowknife just bought an apartment building and is looking for someone to manage it. You know, the Yellowknife Housing Authority already manages hundreds of units. It probably would not be that much of an incremental cost to them to manage another unit. Are we willing to let any LHOs explore the possibility of managing other people's assets? I'll note that argument probably goes just as well for Indigenous governments who are looking to build their open housing but probably don't want to get...

It seems like there should be some way for the housing corp to get that off their books and have it treated like all the other GNWT assets. You know, it just seems odd that we're paying ourselves tax. But I'll leave that as a comment.

I did have a couple questions about the scope of authority of LHOs. I guess I'll start with, do any of our LHOs own any assets, whether that be housing or the offices they work in or anything at all? Thank you.

Yes, I guess I'll start with a comment that it would be helpful I know that this is a finance template to include those positions. I know every time we go through this you get lots of questions about where jobs are in communities. And if any of these jobs move in the Housing Corp positions in the community, we talk about it but clearly the majority of staff are in LHOs. So I think some transparency there would be helpful for everyone. But I'll leave that as a comment.

My other question is I see under community housing services, there's $2 million approximately in property taxes and land...