Rylund Johnson

Madam Speaker, I move, second by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that the Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 20202021 Public Accounts be received by the Assembly and moved into Committee of the Whole for further consideration. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its report on the review of the 20202021 Public Accounts, and commends it to the House.

On December 8, 2021, the Minister of Finance tabled the 202021 Public Accounts. The public accounts are the financial statements that show the financial results of the Government of the Northwest Territories for a given year.

Each year, the Standing Committee on Government Operations reviews the public accounts. These reviews assess the credibility of the government’s financial position and provide accountability...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance responsible for the procurement review.

When you look at schedule 3 of the Business Incentive Policy, there's a number of southern companies that have been grandfathered. I think it would be fair to frame this list as a number of monopolies that we seem to be dedicated to building up. There are three versions of Northwestel; there's Bellanca Developments; three versions of Northern Properties, all of which have been bought and sold many times; three versions of Northmart; and, 13 specified Northern Stores, some of which don...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm going to try this a different way. I know it's possible, that's why I'm asking. Will the Premier change the names? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'd like to recognize Ms. Kya Wickens, a Yellowknife North page. Thank you.

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories, in consultation with the Standing Committee on Government Operations and within the first two years of the 20th Assembly, review each of the Ombud’s recommendations in her 20192020 Annual Report in the context of a wholistic review of the Ombud Act and amend the Act accordingly. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I asked this during yeah, and that would also kind of allude to my point of I could go to every single department and try and find in their operations some sort of licensing contract. I mean, actually I couldn't do that and it wouldn't become publicly available. But I think I would easily get to tens of millions of dollars quite quickly in licensing fees every year, let alone the actual initial capital ask that gets made here.

But I wanted to ask one last question, which was, that Infrastructure is spending an undisclosed amount of millions of dollars on...

Yeah, and I guess I'm wondering if you know, this is one of those areas where I also find a hard time for any of us to provide any accountability. You know, we spend millions on licensing and software and trying to procure these things, there's often problems. I understand that is the case across all governments. I don't really know anything about IT but I'm wondering if well, I guess I'll start with a question.

I heard Infrastructure is planning a dashboard to kind of update projects as they go along and perhaps release some sort of fiveyear capital plan, and I believe almost every...

Yeah, thank you. I guess I'll also reiterate another concern is I really wish that when the capital budgets were estimated or were included that some public information was included about each of these so I did not have to go through each one and ask for a status update. But I'm going to ask for a couple here.

The student records module replacement I see completed for 20252026. Can someone just confirm to me, I believe we had previously passed money, and I thought this was for ECE, for a student record system and then I believe at one point the Minister of ECE said we went out to tender it and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yellowknife North constituent Tasha Olekshy as well, who works in ENR's climate change and air quality unit is here today, as the Minister will be tabling the annual climate change report. Thank you for joining us.