Capital budget, Steve Norn likely to dominate N.W.T.'s fall assembly sitting
CBC
The N.W.T. Legislative Assembly reconvenes on Monday and budget talks are front of mind, along with the report recommending MLA Steve Norn's expulsion and the territory's many other ongoing issues, from housing to climate change.
Cabinet will be tabling the capital estimates budget for the year ahead — a document focusing largely on infrastructure.
Last year's capital budget was the largest the territorial government has ever passed on record and Rylund Johnson, caucus chair and MLA for Yellowknife North, said the public can expect something similar.
"Largely just because it has carry-over in it," Johnson explained, noting there is money that wasn't spent in previous years which has to be re-approved by the legislature.
The assembly will go through each department in detail to review what infrastructure they're planning to build in the next fiscal year.
Johnson lists the Inuvik wind project, power corporation infrastructure and the Yellowknife day shelter as projects as examples in the budget.
In tabling the budget the minister of Infrastructure and minister of Finance will make statements that include highlights in the document.
Johnson said there will also be a conversation about vaccine mandates for MLAs and their staff in the next session. Though the territorial government has already adopted a mandatory vaccination policy, the Legislative Assembly is a distinct body.
For his own priorities, Johnson is committed to advocating for public housing and childcare.
"The details of that plan are, I think, high on everyone's priority list," he said of discussions on a childcare agreement with the federal government.
The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly will table the sole adjudicator's report recommending MLA Steve Norn's expulsion on Monday.
Johnson said they don't yet have a date on when the matter of his expulsion will be called but that it would be "sooner rather than later."
"My initial reaction is that I actually feel sad that we got here," Johnson said of the adjudicator's report.
"I think there are many paths that we could have taken and Mr. Norn could have taken where it did not get to such a state and we're now having a conversation about removing a member, I really wish we didn't get here."
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