Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have two returns. One was asked by Mr. Krutko on May 30, 1997 on land development policy. The western land claims that were settled allowed for the land claim groups, Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, Sahtu, to select lands within municipal boundaries for their ownership and use. These were called municipal lands in the claims. These are not lands owned by the municipalities. Lands within municipalities that were not selected by the claimants have remained under the administration and control of the commissioner or the federal crown.
In Nunavut, TFN was allowed to select land within municipal boundaries as part of settling the land claim. The Nunavut Claim was unique in that it designated the municipality as the owner and administrator of titled land within its boundary. As a result of this, each Nunavut community has had to develop a bylaw regulating how land is to be administered and developed. The fact that most Nunavut hamlets now have land administration bylaws in place has made the GNWT Land Development Capital Program redundant. It is expected that communities administering their own land will also access their own resources through collected lease revenues or borrowing funds to do land development.
In the Inuvik region, the GNWT still administers land on behalf of the communities and the Land Development Capital Program is still in place. There is, however, interest from communities to acquire and administer their own land particularly in Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk. Should this interest remain, it will be possible for these hamlets to obtain ownership and control over lands and draft and implement land administration bylaws. This would also make the Land Development Capital Program obsolete in these communities just as in Nunavut, and the western communities would then access funds either from collected fees or through long term borrowing to maintain a supply of land in their community.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.