Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice, regarding cannabis. Madam Speaker, we find ourselves here, a year and a half after cannabis legalization, with the promise being, after one year, we would have private cannabis stores in the Northwest Territories or at least be along the road. My question is: when will we see our first private cannabis store in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In light of Starlight Investments and KingSett Capital's recent intention to purchase Northview Real Estate, thus making the two largest landlords in Yellowknife. One, I wanted to read an open letter to CEO Jon Love of KingSett Capital and CEO Daniel Drimmer of Starlight Investments.

Congratulations on your intention to purchase Northview Real Estate Investment Trust for $4.8 billion. I wish to inform you that, upon closing this deal, you will own a small city in the subarctic called Yellowknife.

Yellowknife also happens to be the capital city of the Northwest Territories. I invite you to come and visit sometime. It's a beautiful place. In case you were not aware, Northview presently owns the majority of rental apartment units in Yellowknife, and when combining their commercial stock with KingSett's current Yellowknife stock, you will own the majority of commercial leasing space, as well. I have attached a picture of our downtown core to show you all the buildings you will own, one of which KingSett has managed to keep vacant for almost a decade. It recently had its siding fall off; I have attached that picture for you, as well.

Additionally, congratulations on your intention to purchase a company which is our city's leader in residential tenancies violations. When you come visit our town, I hope you will visit the various Northview apartments that have been left in disrepair due to rent money flowing south to fuel other capital investments. Before you purchase our city, I wanted to ensure that you are aware of the fact that the majority of Yellowknifers have, at some point, lived or worked in one of the buildings in this deal, and I have yet to ever hear a single positive thing about that fact.

My apologies, Dan. I know you have significant amount of investment in Northview, but I hope, as our new landlords, we can start a fresh and do some work to repair the relationship with our residents.

Now I recognize that by design real estate is first and foremost an investment for your companies and the fact that people live and work in your property is secondary; but I would hope you both put something extra in for exceptional cases such as this.

As I am sure you are aware the North is an exceptional market. The capitalization rate for Northview's Northern Canada holdings is 9.17 percent which is 55 percent higher than its overall capitalization rate and 40 percent higher than its next most profitable region. Of course KingSett, as a private equity fund for institutional and ultra-high net worth investors, does not have the transparency of an exchange-traded REIT like Northview, such that similar information is not publicly available for Kingsett's current holdings in northern Canada.

Madam Speaker, I am seeking unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

I also note that Northview's current market power, combined with Kingsett's market share, is an index that will make Yellowknife one the most highly concentrated real estate markets in Canada.

Dan, Jon, we all know this deal is not really about Yellowknife. There are so many assets in your combined multi-billion-dollar portfolios that I wouldn't expect you to ever know them all by city. I am hopeful that this letter, despite its sarcastic tone, can start a conversation. There are a variety of remedies available that will ensure the acquisition of Northview can allow some competition to once again exist in our northern capital. I have brought this market share issue to the Competition Bureau of Canada's attention on multiple occasions. I encourage you to reach out the them and divest some of Yellowknife assets in this deal, ideally on a small enough scale to allow local ownership in a city which is desperately in need of competition and local developers. At the very least, perhaps you could try and do something about that 10-storey vacant tower that you own.

Yours truly, Rylund Johnson, MLA for Yellowknife North.

Thank you. I guess that doesn't answer my question of: we have here interest rate of between 4 and 6.42 percent, and then we even have interest rates between 9 and 10 percent. What is it about debentures, a long-term-held debt, that we're paying 10 percent on? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that. I am also always confused about what I know and what is public and whatnot. I was simply looking for something public. My next question is: can I have some explanation of what a debenture is for the NWT Hydro Corporation, specifically what these debts are that have interest rates 6.42 percent, 9 percent, 10 percent? Can someone explain to me what that is and why would we ever be paying that amount of interest?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, I understand. We are paying $33 million a year. A percentage of that goes to principal, and a percentage of that goes to interest. Perhaps the Minister can commit to breaking down that further. I am just looking for some simple numbers I can repeat so I understand how much it costs us to keep borrowing this amount of money. Is that possible?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe I asked this question before, and perhaps this is the page to get it. I have trouble reading these numbers and making any sense of them. Perhaps you or your deputy minster can just give me an estimate. We are borrowing essentially $1.2 billion here. I know it is over a number of projects. I know there is short term and long term. How much interest do we pay on borrowing $1.2 billion?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I guess I'm looking for a breakdown when I look at the Main Estimates 2019-2020, and then they were revised to be lower, and what the cause in that $11 million drop is, and if that was due largely to lack of cannabis sales.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Looking at the 2019 Main Estimates, there was $65 million for the liquor and cannabis sales. I see that the actuals were $54 million in 2018-2019. Now we are estimating $54 million. Is that due to us simply selling less cannabis than we expected, or what is the cause for that?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's clear I'm not going to get a commitment out of you, but once again I find myself, here I am, passing $1 million to an Internal Audit Bureau, and I have no idea what they do. I have no ability to ever see any reports that they produce. I have no ability to know if they're good work, and I guess that troubles me. I think that it's a larger issue of, simply, if we are auditing ourselves, why is that not public information? I'll leave that as a comment, Madam Chair.