Rylund Johnson

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...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll have a couple of questions on community municipal infrastructure gap.

I see there's about a $1.3 million increase here. Can I just well, can I just clarify firstly. Are we going to meet our goal of closing the municipal funding gap by $5 million, and can the Minister speak to how that works with the formula that actually factors in a number of cost increases over time into the gap? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I am very happy to hear that, and I know that there will be a number of contractors who are familiar with those the likely people who will bid on that RFP and have worked with them across the North in different territories, and I think we ease the workload of those people at the Office of the Fire Marshal by doing that. So I look forward to seeing that RFP.

I wanted to talk about the contract services line item here of $30 million. I'm going I'm quite confident that this is the flood money. Can I just get an update on when we expect to have completed our...

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I've spoken about many times, we are the only place in Canada that doesn't employ building inspectors. We take one small part of the building code, and we give it to the Office of the Fire Marshal. But, you know, compared to Yukon and Nunavut or anywhere else, we don't actually apply the whole National Building Code and we don't really develop that expertise. And I know the Fire Prevention Act is scheduled. I heard the Minister speak during corporate services about all the work they are doing to find policy staff.

I'm just I'm still slightly unsure about what the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I and I know that the department and whenever we're looking to bring a vaccine into public funded, there's a bit of a debate, you know, about most vaccines that save us money in healthcare costs in the long term if they prevent hospitalizations we save money in the long term. And with shingles, in this case we would save people a lot of pain. I'm just wondering if the department has any evidence that or has done any of the research about whether extending this vaccine to everyone would actually save the health system money? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a reminder to everyone to get vaccinated and don't just get vaccinated against COVID. If your kids are in school, get them vaccinated against chicken pox. And if you're over 50, you should be vaccinated against the shingles virus.

The shingles virus, sometimes called adult chicken pox, is when the virus reemerges years later. And, Mr. Speaker, shingles is not just a bad rash. In up to 18 percent of people, it attacks the nervous system and can cause strong shooting nerve pain for months if not years after getting shingles. And it's currently recommended that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I kind of get the math here. It makes sense for the Housing Corp to build RCMP units because then we get the 70 percent rate covered under the agreement thus giving the Housing Corp a little revenue. Is this $809,000 our portion or is this then under the 70/30 split? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm sure the Minister will keep us apprised of his different approach.

One of the things I would really like the Minister to look into is tieing our minimum wage to inflation. I know we have the second highest right now, but we're kind of in a tie with Yukon and BC and it looks like Yukon's going to pass us on April 1 when inflation goes up. And so we're kind of in this constant battle where we have a political choice to raise the minimum wage as opposed to many jurisdictions who just automatically raise it with inflation. Is pegging the minimum wage to the consumer...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I believe I will be seeing that in a SUP.

Can the Minister provide I know there's quite a bit of money coming forward from the RCMP collective agreement, and the big question is the retroactive number. I know this is conversation happening all across Canada. Does the Minister have any update on when and how much we are expecting to see retroactively for the collective agreement?