Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When are we going to remove Walmart from the business incentive policy, Mr. Speaker? I want to clarify it's not just Walmart, it's the entirety of Schedule 3 of the business incentive policy, which is a list of 54 grandfathered southernowned companies that, about a decade ago, seemed to get grandfathered in. And, Mr. Speaker, these are some of the largest companies in the world, like Loblaws. Why do we have to give preferential bid adjustments to Loblaws, Mr. Speaker?

Another egregious example, Northwestel. Northwestel has a legallyprotected monopoly in the North yet we...

Yeah, you know, I've said this before, I'll say it again. Either they should be arm's length and set policies on who can get into rental housing, apply for money, take on assets, or let's take those staff, bring them into the housing corporation, make them public servants, you know, are transferrable, that we can keep a track of waitlists, maintenance lists. It just seems I don't see any benefit to this current approach. I am of the view that giving them more authority is the way to go if we actually want local control, but. Yeah, I will try and frame that as a question.

Going forward, are we...

Thank you. And I guess in the same vein, I know the Yellowknife Housing Authority has tried to apply for funding and been told they cannot directly apply for funding or obtain federal funding or any sources of funding outside of the money they get through the housing corp. Is that something we are willing to revisit? Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm wondering if LHOs have the ability to manage other people's assets? I know here in Yellowknife both the city has kind of made that ask of the Yellowknife Housing Authority as well as perhaps some nonprofits, obviously for money, but is that something any of our LHOs do or are able do? Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, I think that would be helpful that we just it seems an odd thing that the housing corp is paying lease fees to lands.

Can someone just explain to me the property taxes here? Is the housing corporation my understanding is that no other GNWT assets pay property tax. Good thing we have a former team of MACA here. They essentially we take the value of our assets and we give a grant in lieu through that formula. But can I just clarify whether the housing corporation is not part of that and, in fact, just pays property taxes? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see that the housing corporation has 107 positions. Can I just get clarification whether that number includes the staff at LHOs and, if not, how many positions exist within LHOs. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try again once more. Okay, perhaps we have to wait for the new policy that answers, you know, some of these companies and I get it's difficult to say if your base of operations are here but you've sold since been sold, should you fall under the new policy. But to me the answer to that is the new policy. So I don't want to see a situation where we create a new policy and then we keep Schedule 3. So we go well, we're just going to leave those people there forever.

So will the Minister commit that once we have a new policy in place, we will be removing...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm wondering if when this decision was made, or if the Minister of health knows, whether this is actually more expensive? I imagine that we are sending 400 patients down to Alberta, we're going to get quite a big bill both from Alberta and our medical travel. So I'm just curious, in the longterm, when we're looking at rebuilding this program, does that actually save us money? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.