Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson
Yellowknife North

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The committee believes the GNWT can and should be a leader in the accessibility of financial reporting, and therefore recommends:

The Standing Committee on Government Operations recommends that the comptroller general, in consultation with the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and the Standing Committee on Government Operations, study potential changes to the public accounts to make them more userfriendly and accessible while ensuring a high degree of transparency and accountability from the Government of the Northwest Territories.

This concludes the Standing...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Perhaps I can just get clarification on whether I'm supposed to move the committee report into Committee of the Whole after or before I read the report?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. You know, I know there's a lot of experts here, and I struggle to understand how something doesn't get built to code, and then I know sometimes the experts get in fights about what actually the National Building Code says. So my question for the Minister of the housing, do her experts in the Housing Corporation agree with the fire marshal's assessment of the National Building Code, or are we in one of these situations we're having a battle of the experts in the GNWT? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This week, I asked the Minister responsible for MACA when the seniors facility in Fort Good Hope would open, and he told me to ask the Minister of Housing. So my question for the Minister of Housing, I know she is intimately familiar with that facility, having been the one who opened it in her community, when will that facility open Madam Speaker?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would really appreciate if we shared some of those principles. I feel like asking questions about something I can't see is a bit of a search in the dark.

One of our commitments is to implement UNDRIP. To date, this House has seen no regulations. I don't believe there's been a single Cabinet policy change and certainly no legislation has changed to reflect UNDRIP. So my question for the Premier is what has been done to implement UNDRIP to date, or what are we doing to implement UNDRIP? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that it's complicated. I guess part of the concern I hear from Indigenous governments is it's the only reason we have the land is devolution before and, you know, I think there's been a lot of criticism about having a third party at the table. And I guess my question is now that devolution is a bit of a defacto completion, is the agreement to sign on to devolution, and I think probably more importantly the corresponding royalty split, a condition for any future land claims as far as the GNWT is concerned?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Madam Speaker, the other night I was watching the news and after years of Iran failing to come to the table to negotiate a nuclear deal, I heard the lead negotiator on that file say they expected a deal within one year. And Madam Speaker, I thought let's hire that guy to settle some land claims.

Madam Speaker, the time, all across Canada in fact, not just the GNWT problem, to conclude a land claim agreement is getting longer and longer. They are becoming slower and slower to negotiate and as the time period gets longer, the number of leaders involved in each negotiating gets longer, only...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Committee Report 2319(2), Report on the Review of the 20182019 and 20192020 Public Accounts, be received by the Assembly and moved into the Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

The paper is on my desk.

Madam Speaker, your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its Report on the Review of the 201819 and 201920 Public Accounts and commends it to the House.

The Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories’ Standing Committee on Government Operations has a mandate to review the Report on the Government of the Northwest Territories’ Public Accounts. This review helps ensure that issues related to public spending the GNWT’s fiscal management practices are publicly examined and scrutinized to promote government accountability. Due to the...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 89)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I really hope there's not some engineer in the GNWT who just cringed when he was told that he concurs with the assessment. But my question here is this has happened to the GNWT multiple times, where we've opened buildings and then there's been well, in this case, a oneyear delay before the building is actually opened. Are there some sort of lessons learned? Is there a path forward to prevent us from continuing to not open our buildings or not build them to code. Thank you, Madam Speaker.