Rylund Johnson

Yeah, Madam Chair, I mean, I'm opposed to this, and I also just think it's very problematic what the Member's doing here. He keeps finding kind of weird hypothetical situations and saying there's no specific regulation making authority in an act that has one of the largest regulation making authority sections I've ever seen and, as the Member said, he's ever seen. And if this is how we're going to interpret legislation, it's highly problematic because most acts don't say oh, and you can make regulations in relation to this plan for the timelines of it, the ability to amend it, where it's...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. We've had this discussion lots in committee on a number of bills. I guess if it was up to me, I don't think I would legislate any annual report in any piece of legislation. We see that they are moving. We see that often you want different things. Sometimes reporting changes over time. I just don't view what the content of a report is as something that's really the purview of the legislature. Government is pretty committed to publishing more and reporting on far more. We just have added a lot of these clauses, it will cost a lot of government, and I just think...

I think that was a maybe, Mr. Speaker. And I get that when things are going through the Cabinet process, there's Cabinet confidentiality and you can't, as a Minister, you know, expose the outcome of that. I guess I'm trying to understand what is going to Cabinet potentially or could possibly. My understanding is we version one was an Indigenous employment policy and then a diversity and inclusion policy which added a number of new categories, including P2 and disability and sexuality and racialized persons. That was version 1. We went out, engaged on that. Version 2 essentially dropped the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Affirmative Action Policy that the GNWT has been in place for about 40 years and has seen little improvement in increasing Indigenous people. And, Mr. Speaker, I think before any review is conducted by the government, they have to ask themselves whether they're willing to actually make changes.

The Affirmative Action Policy is a bit of a political bombshell, Mr. Speaker, because I think there is broad agreement that everybody wants Indigenous Northerners to be priority one. And then, really, the question becomes what to do about P2s. And if the government is going to...

Yeah, thank you. You know, and I get that's the nature of these; you got to do a lot of planning work and you got to spend a few million dollars. I mean, we've been spending I think since the 16th Assembly we've been spending a few million dollars every budget on Taltson to do some engineering assessments. And I get the project is kind of evolving and it's, you know, no longer going to the diamond mines and it's relying on a bunch of metal mines. I know Pine Point in their preliminary economic assessment says they're buying power from the Taltson at 11 cents a kilowatt hour, which is very...

Yeah, that's all fine. I get the debate. I get the debate when to build it and, you know, this debate if you build it they will come. You know, I just don't understand why we can't have a rough estimate of what it's going to cost. It just doesn't it's like I'm having a debate with no idea. I don't even know what to ask next. Do we know the route yet? Did we make a decision on whether it's submarine or going around the lake? Thank you.

Can I get an over/under on $2 billion? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. In addition, in that July report, you know, it kind of just says the work to create an Indigenous Procurement Policy is ongoing, there's no kind of timeline on there. I'm wondering if we have any sense of I know that's not going to be done in in the next week, but is there any hope of us getting that done in some sort of timeline, or will we have an Indigenous Procurement Policy as a government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I really do not like leaving things to the next Assembly. I think if you look at the last Assembly's mandate, a lot of the things that were very close, and it's clear hundreds of hours of staff time went into them and, you know, there was perhaps some last minute disagreement. Never got done. We didn't take them on. They didn't make it into our mandate. And all of that work disappeared. There's quite a few things in our mandate that I'm sure the next Assembly will let die as well. I'm hoping that the Business Incentive Policy is not one of them. So my question is for...

Yeah, thank you. Can I just confirm I think before that this was money administered on behalf of others and then we changed the financial reporting, and it shows up this way. And essentially we're just holding this money for the communities and these fluctuations are based on how we get it out the door, is that correct? Thank you.