Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the goals here was that the GNWT was going to publish its principles and interests. You know, we're really supposed to have done that spring 2021; it's now spring 2022 and we haven't. But I see here that in the coming months it's supposed to be published. Does the Premier have an update of when those principles and interests will be published. Thank you.

In favour.

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...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I know the department, well, is reviewing the three policies and, you know, I eventually understand we will update them. I get the kind of scale of that task and getting into the weeds of hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars worth of infrastructure. But I'm just wondering as part of that work whether there is any desire to bring any of this into regulation or to bring it into contract with municipalities. I think there is a bit of a I get that we don't want to bind future Assemblies but the way that municipal or that school funding formula, as...

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Well, as the Minister knows, and I talked to him about, I submitted a written question setting out the funding gap by each community. Because if you go and look, the last public information you can find is from the 2014 review. But I'm hoping the Minister could speak to the willingness of the department to find a way to publish this going forward by, you know, each of the three categories for each of the communities and perhaps even, you know, just a bit of an explanation of how those numbers were calculated or how we got there. I'll note finding real time figures...

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.