Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson
Yellowknife North

Statements in Debates

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

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'll note that March 2022 is a full year after the Minister opened the building officially. Can someone just explain to me what is going on here? Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I would appreciate the Minister getting back to the House with information on how or what software we need to do this. I know we are purchasing a new electronic medical records system which will cost millions of dollars. And I guess I wanted to also know, as I mentioned in my statement, when we did the vaccine roll out, the software, however we got it, was great. I think everyone who could book online and could see their appointments and get reminders was very happy with that software but I'll note, with perhaps the exception of occupational therapy and...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was hoping the Minister of Health and Social Services could tell me which procedures or services we presently track the wait times for and which we don't. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I recognize that it's hard to just, you know, completely understand an infrastructure deficit. We all struggle to do that for the territory. But can I just get a bit more explanation on what, having a $40 million annual infrastructure deficit means. Does that mean if we actually wanted to maintain the current housing stock to a suitable standard, the Housing Corp would need another $40 million every single year? Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Forgive me, I couldn't add up all the numbers here. How many in this fiscal sorry, I keep saying "this", I mean 20222023, the fiscal year we're approving, how many units are we planning to retrofit?

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe there's a disconnect, and I'm trying to understand this number that shows up repeatedly. So the new units, I believe, are reflected in the revised estimates. That's why it's $60 million more, because the feds gave us $60 million and we're going to put housing units on the ground. But for 20222023, right now is the Housing Corp planning to build no new units; is that what this is? Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I get an explanation of what, I just want to fully understand this number, what capital is. So the budget for the Housing Corp is about $109 million, $10 million is for just capital. Does that mean this is only for new builds and anything to maintain units or bring them up to standard would be not capital? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to have quite a few comments so I appreciate committee indulging me.

This was a private Member's bill brought forward by MLA O'Reilly. I thank him for doing that. It has started a lot of conversations in the department with industry, and within the committee. Ultimately this report has no recommendations and as noted by our chair, there wasn't the committee was not able to reach agreement on whether to proceed with it.

Firstly, I think there's a bit of a learning curve on how to deal with private Member's bills, and what exactly can be done in that case...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I suspect it's the boring explanation "due to software" that I am most interested in, Mr. Speaker. I note, on that list, was a very short list of services we're tracking wait times for and did not include a number of procedures and surgeries which is where I get most of my constituent complaints. I'm just wondering if there is any work to be done to create some sort of dashboard where that information is available publicly. I know this is done across all the provinces in Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 88)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the key indicators for evaluating how a health system works is wait times. And right now, you can go to every other jurisdiction or every province in Canada and look up their wait times. And I'd encourage people to do this. If you go to the BC one, it's actually quite an amazing database. You can see every single surgeon and how many procedures they currently have waiting, at which hospitals, at which region. You can see the number of weeks for every single procedure that could be scheduled in the health care system in live reported data, Mr. Speaker. And...