Rylund Johnson

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...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Bill 53, An Act to Amend the Liquor Act, received second reading in the Assembly on May 31st, 2022, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for a review on October 7th, 2022.

Committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Finance and completed its clausebyclause review of the bill. Committee received no submissions on this bill.

I thank committee for their efforts in reviewing this legislation. I have no comments at this time, but individual Members may have additional questions or comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, admittedly I've been asking about this for quite a while now, and I'm still not really sure what occurred here. You know, initially I thought it was just our usual fight with the fire marshal but it's clear there's some larger contractual issues or contracting issues. Can the Minister just try and, you know, in simple terms explain to me what exactly has occurred here? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad the Minister that the department is already doing that, but I think it needs a little bit of a review because, clearly, it's not working if the end goal is local ownership. It's clear, if you look at the city of Yellowknife skyline, we don't have local ownership. Almost every single building is owned by some multi-billion-dollar REIT. So my question is, you know, I think actually a number of companies, perhaps Indigenous development corps, if you gave them enough notice three, five years out that you were looking to renew a very large lease and you were...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure that is proprietary information. I can go to the contracts reports and filter out who wins leases and who we're paying money to. It's not all there because I said many of these leases are well over 20 years old. And I think that lines up with what the Minister said, that our current leases of approved real property policy is well over 20 years old. I'm not remotely convinced that we are in compliance with it. It does require us to be doing continuous value for money analysis, and it does require us to continue to analyze whether it is cheaper to own...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT manages a $31 million lease portfolio. That is larger than the budget of EIA, Lands, and of that $31 million, Mr. Speaker, $21 million goes to one company, that is the combined assets of Northview and KingSett. That's more than we presently provide our communities for water and sewer, Mr. Speaker. We manage 129 leases for 626,000 square feet of office spaces. That's 12 Bellanca buildings, Mr. Speaker; many of them in downtown Yellowknife. And, Mr. Speaker, it is clear that that $20 million a year, we provide to one company year after year for decades now, has...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess, I believe this building is already under construction as we speak. Can I just are we on track? When do we expect it to be complete? Thank you

Thank you, Madam Chair. And can the Minister just remind me where child care spaces have landed in this debate? I know we have new capital standards, and I believe there was some intention when communities wanted to put child care spaces directly in schools. Yeah, I guess more generally speaking, is that now our goal, or is that kind of dependent on the individual school? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I recall last capital budget we passed these three portables for Colville Lake, and the intention there was that was going to act as their school while it was completed. But I see now there's been a change here where Colville Lake School has been changed from being built to a planning designation. Can I just get a bit of an update of what the current plan is or what's going on with the Colville Lake School? Thank you.