Mr. Chairman, I am not sure what other alternatives there may have been, but perhaps the legal counsel would be able to respond. Mr. Flynn.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The concern expressed in the communities when SCOL visited was that, because land claims were unsettled, they didn't want the existing municipal property provisions to change in respect of them. So, this required an exclusion approach. It was a question of whether it would be by community or by geographic area. It was decided that it would be simpler to list the communities. That was the reason it was done. Thank you.

Thank you. I take it that the reason the amendments were done the way they were was to respond to the concerns of the communities that made presentations at the SCOL hearings. I thought there might have been another

way of doing it, rather than specifically naming certain communities. That was what I was getting at. Could it have been done other ways rather than specifically naming communities in the amendment? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The answer is yes. It could have been done by geographic description of the ridings in question or the unsettled land claims area in question. The result is the same with the bill that we have as it is now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On this bill, land within community boundaries within the Nunavut settlement area and areas of the western NWT is managed by the Government of the Northwest Territories under the land lease policy. With the passage of these bills, would this eliminate the policy as the land would be turned over to the communities? Would this land lease policy be eliminated? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, no, it doesn't. The policy would stay in effect. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to make a point that there are two communities in my constituency that are specifically named in Bill 3 and Bill 4, and there is discussion about reaching some sort of land claims in the future. The problem is, the solution here would be to clearly define ownership in the area where no land claim agreements or land entitlements exist today. That should be the way of dealing with the problem in this area. If it does happen, these bills would have to be amended again to allow these communities, if they so choose, to go in the direction that everybody else is going. I guess the question here is, would we have to amend the bill again for these two communities to be included in the act with everybody else? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, if the communities so choose, we would have to come back to this Assembly and amend the two bills. The Member is correct. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make sure that it's on the record that this has been a long outstanding issue of the Beaufort/Delta communities. There has been a desire to change the land lease-only policy and give more authority to the communities so that we can get on with business, prior to Nunavut and prior to settlement of the Nunavut claim. I just want this Legislative Assembly to know that it is not necessarily just because of Nunavut. There are other regions of the Northwest Territories, like the Beaufort/Delta communities, particularly, that have been trying to get this authority in the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome this amendment very much because it will not just accommodate the Inuvialuit region, but also Nunavut and other communities that desire to start building an economic base using land development for the purposes of residential and commercial use. I come from a small community and in a small community there are always very clear, influential citizens. Some of the them become mayors and business people. I skimmed through this and tried to find something that prevents the municipality from amending their own by-laws to accommodate potential applicants or buyers of the land, if you know what I mean.

Mr. Chairman. Once this bill has passed the municipalities will then own the municipal lands, and the people will be able to hold a referendum in their communities to decide whether they will continue with the land lease-only policy or whether they will be able to sell the lands that they own. I hope I answered the Member's question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not quite. Maybe I didn't phrase my question properly. Say a municipality, through a referendum, decides they want to start selling plots of land and they decide that an area will be sold for commercial use and another area would be sold for residential use, et cetera. However, when after a new election a new mayor gets in and says he would like to propose an amendment to the by-law by opening a particular area for commercial or residential use to accommodate himself or someone else that is connected to him. I want a provision that once the municipality holds a referendum and creates a plot of land for sale, there will not be further authorization through amendments of the by-law opening up until the next referendum, whether it is six months or a year from now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that the area the Member is raising is part of the land claim agreement. I would like to ask Mr. Ashton to respond.