Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, MACA has a very limited program to assist tax-based communities with infrastructure other than for water and sewer programs.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, other jurisdictions in Canada, I am familiar with the Yukon, do have a program where the territorial government does assist with the up-front high cost of putting infrastructure in, which then enables private individuals and the private sector to put affordable housing up in a much more expeditious way.

Is there anything preventing this government from looking at putting together that kind of program, not only for Yellowknife but for other communities, especially Inuvik, that are also under a housing shortage? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there is anything preventing this government and this department from following up on suggestions such as the one that the Member put forward.

I would just like to point out though that MACA, in their policies governing the assistance to communities to develop infrastructure, has policies for land development for non-tax-based communities. The only policies we have as far as assisting tax-based communities is through debentures or financing that this government would put in place, possibly a loan to the city or to the tax-based community at a better rate than the city or the town may obtain directly from the bank.

However, I believe this program is accessible through the Department of Finance via the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps at another time I will direct a question to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. I would like to again press the Minister -- right now, the City of Yellowknife has an accelerated demand for accommodation largely driven by our diamond industry. We are fortunate to have that.

Other communities though up and down the Valley are hopefully going to be in a similar situation when a pipeline happens. We are not an anomaly here. We are part of a trend that I hope is going to continue in the Northwest Territories. Land development will be something that many other communities hopefully will have to deal with.

Can this government commit to looking at something that will be progressive...

Mr. Braden, I am sorry to interrupt but I would limit your preamble to a question. What is your question?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will this government commit to looking ahead to the long term to assist all communities in the Northwest Territories with large-scale infrastructure development? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for MACA, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just recently the department was considering a program whereby we would assist all communities, including tax-based communities, with the development of land lots for residential purposes.

We were doing this in consultation with the Housing Corporation and in cooperation with them as well on what possible programs we could come up with to address this particular issue.

In particular, it was identified that Yellowknife and Inuvik, as far as tax-based communities, were very heavily impacted right now and there was a shortage of lots for residential purposes. However, the program that we put forward to Cabinet and FMB, the decision of Cabinet and FMB was that this program to develop lots, a certain number of lots rather than a whole pile of them, in non-tax-based communities is what we got approval for.

At this point in time we have not followed it up with some kind of proposal to address the issues in the cities, in the larger centres like Inuvik. It was mainly because the thought was there are enough developers in these communities already. It is just a matter of finding funding to assist people to purchase these lots. What was brought forward as one of the major problems was that a lot of these lots were market-driven prices rather than the real price of what it cost to develop them. In some cases, as much as 50 percent more of a markup on the price of the lot.

The government felt that it was a matter of the market taking care of itself. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. I just want to remind Members -- and Ministers, of course -- that oral questions should be short and to the point and responses should be equally short and to the point. Your final supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the Minister's response then, are there discrepancies between the territorial government's approach to infrastructure development and the municipalities' approach to marketing and pricing?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there are any discrepancies between the two. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following on my Member's statement about traditional knowledge and the practices that are now beginning to be implemented across the Northwest Territories. Although this falls under a number of different departments I am going to go with my first question to the Minister responsible for Justice and find out if, in fact, the practices are changing as new facilities are being built and existing facilities in operation -- if the programs available to constituents of ours that have unfortunately found themselves in these facilities, are those programs specific to receiving help through these new traditional healing practices? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Justice, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I hear the question correctly, there are a number of programs that are being introduced in the context of traditional healing. Sharing circles is one. The use of the drum in other jurisdictions is another. We still profess on the liberty of people's choice for prayer, that is another. There are also areas of sweats and pipe ceremonies. Those are currently some of the typical traditional methods used in the corrections service. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my understanding then is that the term that has been used is "Christian services" will be available, along with the traditional practices that are now being implemented? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Justice, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I understand that the choice of religion is entrenched in our Canadian Constitution and that will certainly be acknowledged. We anticipate that will continue. Thank you.