Rylund Johnson

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to start just by commending the GNWT for some of the creative options it already has such as deferred leave where a worker can take a reduced pay cut for a number of years and then have a year off with leave without pay, or options such as flex days where workers can increase their working hours in a day to get an additional day off. All of which are great programs that cost the GNWT no money but help with retention.

However, Mr. Speaker, I believe we need to go further and try and formalize some policy around a fourday workweek. I have talked to workers who...

In favour.

In favour.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I would like the Minister to speak to any work that's being done to increase our emergency management ability. I'll note that we budget $330,000, which is two or three staff to you know, if you look at the actuals, I mean obviously last year was a bad year, but I don't even know if three staff can administer $35 million and then the year before that, they had to administer a few million more, you know, just to track that amount of money requires more than three staff, let alone actually be on the ground responding to emergencies. And I think given the climate...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I probably a larger conversation here about I know departments have their processes and have to go through them but, you know, we have 18 months left in this Assembly, and I at some point, we just need to stop talking to anyone and stop talking to the communities and get the Building Inspection Act considering we're the only place in Canada without one, would be my opinion. But I'll leave it to the department to do their processes.

My question is there's I know the Office of the Fire Marshal only has a $500,000 budget. It's a pretty small office with quite a lot...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I'm going to have to revisit those numbers because if there's annual ongoing hospitalization costs and we can just do a one time, get everyone out there vaccinated and, you know, largely at some point the chicken pox vaccine will catch up and the number of shingles cases will really decline in the population. But I'm hoping I you know, as public health moves into, you know, having a little bit more time on their hand, we could get some information out there telling people to get vaccinated for shingles and how exactly and when they can get reimbursed. I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I spoke about in my statement, right now the shingles vaccine is both available and recommended for those over 50; however, it's only covered under both Blue Cross health extended benefits and NHIB for those ages 65 to 70. I was hoping the Minister of Health can explain this, especially the cap. It seems odd to me that if you are 71 and you go to get the vaccine, you're too late. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, I would also like to apologize. I'll get a hold of the Minister, and we'll schedule those briefings as soon as possible.

I'm looking at the contract services budget here, and I'll note that last fiscal's actuals we spent $97,000 out of 868, about 10 percent, of the budget. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's because that was COVID and we didn't deliver a lot of the school of government programming in person as we intended.

Can the Minister just tell us about this upcoming fiscal and whether we're going to spend all of those that contract services...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I sure hope the Minister answers my written question then.

I guess, you know, there is no secret that all municipalities across Canada are experiencing very tough pressures on their infrastructure, and it's no secret that we as a government are also doing that. I'll note there's a number of relatively well, no, there's a number of massive kind of federal programmings funding community infrastructure right now. Some have different expiration dates, and quite a few of them flow through GNWT.

Can the Minister speak to any kind of lobbying efforts or work we're doing with...