Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that they are listening to us on the floor, and I hope that they've been hearing the comments that have been made by previous standing committees and Members in this House about how it would be appreciated if the IGCS conducted itself more publicly. To that point, Mr. Speaker, will the contractor be engaging with the Assembly and the public and reporting publicly on their findings? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to follow up a bit on the line of questioning I had with the Premier earlier. He mentioned that the review of the intergovernmental agreement is going to be done by a contractor; however, the business plan that they just shared with us a few weeks ago says an internal IGCS committee and terms of reference for that review have been established and that they have been meeting regularly to advance the review. So can the Premier just clarify for us is this being done by a contractor or a committee? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I note in their 2023 report on the Forest Act, the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment made a number of recommendations related to the co-drafting process and how it relates to the public and committee. Can the Premier confirm these recommendations will be reviewed and addressed by the IGCS committee conducting the intergovernmental agreement review? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I almost got ahead of myself there. Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Infrastructure.

Earlier this sitting, I raised the need for a regulation under the Motor Vehicles Act for disposal of low-value vehicles. I note that the City of Yellowknife recently wrote the Minister about this issue again. So I wanted to ask the Minister again, can he commit to bringing forward a regulation under the Motor Vehicles Act for disposal of low-value vehicles within the term of this Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that's it for questions on this page.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. The deputy minister answered a question I hadn't even asked yet, so it's amazing; they're reading minds over here.

What I -- I am curious -- I think that the temporary transitional housing project out by the airport has a 24-bed capacity. It seems like the need is out there. Does the Minister or her staff have any insights as to why we haven't been able to fill that facility yet?

Thank you, Madam Chair. And certainly very excited to see that and really appreciate Housing NWT's work there. As I am starting to run out of time, I did have one kind of just basic and fundamental question to ask the Minister.

Can Housing NWT confirm how many new units are anticipated to be added to the public housing stock by the end of the 20th Assembly? And just to be clear about the question, I am not asking how many units is Housing NWT building but how many units are being added to public housing's overall stock, knowing that some get removed when things get built so I am just curious...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Looking forward to reviewing it and getting that through the Assembly, especially considering my statement today about moving legislation quickly.

The next question I have is on page 16 of the business plan. I just note that the department has a goal of getting 25 Housing NWT units demolished and moved out of communities to make land available for housing development. They have a goal of getting 25 units done by October 2027. We're only at four units in 2026, and they have seven units currently approved for demolition. So we're not quite halfway there. I am just...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask some questions about the business plan. I figured this would be as good of a spot as any so I will try to refer to pages to keep the Minister and staff on track. The first one is on page 10 of the business plan.

It talks about updated legislation, updating the Housing NWT Act. And it says in the business plan the legislative review is underway and there's a proposal planned for 2026-2027, quarter 1. So I think -- I always have a hard time with the way fiscal years work and everything. But I think we're in quarter 1 now. So is that on track; do we expect...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Assembly or MLAs have any opportunity to contribute to those terms of reference or at least see them before they're set in stone and put out for RFP? Thank you.